


Kintsugi

by slashaholic666 (queerlybeloved777)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BDSM, Communication, Consent Issues, Dom Draco Malfoy, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Impact Play, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Master/Slave, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, Public Sex, Rape Recovery, Safewording, Sexual Slavery, Spanking, Sub Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-07-25 23:03:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 49,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerlybeloved777/pseuds/slashaholic666
Summary: The darkness of the black blindfold was disconcerting, but Harry tried his best not to tap his fingers or move his arms, knowing the deep blue scarf wound around his wrists was more for show than actual restraint and could come undone under too much fidgeting. Prospective buyers had to be able to test their range of motion or something along those lines. Harry had heard different footsteps and hushed whispering for the most part in Romanian, but no one had stopped to inspect him closer, to touch, or to speak to him. Someone in line had shifted and their leather shorts squeaked, but there hadn't seemed to be very many sounds of anyone being inspected. A fluttering nervousness had crept into the young man's gut. The private viewing before the auction officially started was rather like an auction for the particularly wealthy clients, and Matei hadn't prepared him for this anticipation. Would Matei's starting offer hold up against one of their offers?





	1. Auction (Aug 1)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Playing with Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/561248) by [Soulbarebones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulbarebones/pseuds/Soulbarebones). 
  * Inspired by [Sherlock the Model](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110669) by [wendymarlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymarlowe/pseuds/wendymarlowe). 



> Inspired by a Master/slave fic that features Harry spending the summer at the dragon reserve with Charlie in Romania, an emotion based headhunting experience, and a training school for slaves among other elements. Reading "Playing with Fire" is not necessary to understand this story. "Sherlock the Model" specifically inspired the erotic performance venue in Ch 5.  
> Spotify playlist for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/0hvdzhl02n00wwqy4s865z4wo/playlist/1M28HZWhb0eq8D1TiqvFHZ?si=a30HEwDtS0aVAnpYt6w05g).

The darkness of the black blindfold was disconcerting, but Harry tried his best not to tap his fingers or move his arms, knowing the deep blue scarf wound around his wrists was more for show than actual restraint and could come undone under too much fidgeting. Prospective buyers had to be able to test their range of motion or something along those lines. Harry had heard different footsteps and hushed whispering for the most part in Romanian, but no one had stopped to inspect him closer, to touch, or to speak to him. Someone in line had shifted and their leather shorts squeaked, but there hadn't seemed to be very many sounds of anyone being inspected. A fluttering nervousness had crept into the young man's gut. The private viewing before the auction officially started was rather like an auction for the particularly wealthy clients, and Matei hadn't prepared him for this anticipation. Would Matei's starting offer hold up against one of their offers?

A gentle hand in the middle of his shoulders had simply prompted him to walk forward into this side room, and now Harry had to wait. He'd completed his year and a day training program, and the results of this auction would determine who his Owner was going to be for the next three years. Slowly, starting from the toes and feet up through his legs, Harry tensed and relaxed his muscles, willing to remain in his posture and not pace around the seemingly empty room. The fluttering was back. Matei had been buried in his arse, fragments of Romanian falling from his lips in between ragged gasps, when he'd made up his mind on how many years his contract should be. One year with Matei didn't seem like enough, two sounded more reasonable for starting out, but the longest amount called to him as Matei's calloused fingers rubbed circles into his back and murmured praises in English were kissed into his neck.

The soft click of the doorknob turning turned the nervousness into flutters of excitement. The stride of dragonhide boots against the wood floor was deceptively gentle due to some inherent magical trait of the hide that muffled sound. Harry kept his breathing relaxed and held as still as he could, waiting for Matei to speak. Their plan had surely worked, and now they could be together until --

"Bună dimineața", Harry felt all the anticipatory fluttering in his stomach still and freeze. That voice was a deep baritone and most certainly not Matei's grumbly quick Romanian. An expectant pause and then, "Vorbiți engleză?"

Dimly aware that the man was asking about English, Harry nodded and tried to focus on the echoed words of a translation spell that rendered his English inflectionless, "Do you know where you are?", a brief nod again, "Can you speak? English is acceptable."

Harry licked his lips and was relieved that his voice didn't waver or betray the fear squeezing his chest, "I am in Constanța, Romania."

"The University of Constanța, a training school for hetaerae", Harry could feel the skin of his forehead shift against the cotton of the blindfold as he frowned, "You are in a program for pleasure slaves and are now considered a hetaera."

 _This man is odd_ , Harry turned his head away to glance down, if his eyes were uncovered, out of habit of keeping his thoughts from being guessed. This could be a humorous observation or a rude statement about his future -- His mind shied away from that thought. Perhaps this was one of the trainers he hadn't interacted with? Someone who only helped with the auction and transporting the slaves around the school? He spoke quietly into the waiting silence, "I came here to be trained as a slave, and that is all I've been called."

"You signed a contract as a hetaera for the duration of three years", Harry nodded and nervously rotated his wrists against the silk scarf, "Your wand has been locked away into a holding box and your magic restrained until your contract ends", another lick of the lips and a small nod. A featherlight touch against the thick skin of his lightning bolt scar made Harry tense, his muscles clenching and keeping him in a tightly coiled position because flight wasn't an option. The man's Romanian sounded calm and gentle otherwise the translated question might have prompted Harry into taking a step back at the very least, "Did you know there is a market for Savior lookalikes? A surprising amount of people want to fuck the Boy Who Lived Twice."

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ , Harry swallowed and concentrated on breathing evenly. He had never considered that possibility because the school masked the students' identities during training, but whatever magic accomplished that was never specifically guaranteed to last once he finished training and the auction began. Slavery was a way to find that place inside beyond the name - _Harry. Just Harry_ \- and now someone had bought him because he was Harry Potter. A gentle breeze flowed over his skin, and Harry couldn't help but cock his head at the waves of magic washing over him while the man hummed thoughtfully and his quiet footsteps circled. After a spell that made all of the hair on his arms stand on end and set off uncontrollable shivering, the man swore loudly in Romanian, muttered something quietly to himself, and recast the translation spell, "This is not the work of spells or charms, even unauthorized ones. Did you have anything to drink before the auction?"

"No", Harry shook his head and frowned again. He couldn't tell if this man wanted him to be himself or not, and the fact that he knew enough about ending whatever spells could recreate Harry's visage to try them already did not help. There could be who knows how many slave Harry lookalikes out there. The thought creeped him out and made his skin crawl from something unpleasant, yet it also gave him pause. Would multiple slave Harrys make it easier to hide within this world? Would duplicates make it harder for people to rat to the press? Warm fingertips slid down his jawline and tilted his chin up. Harry complied obediently unfazed by the other man being taller than him since the overwhelming majority were. The lilt of Romanian sounded thoughtful, humanizing that inflectionless translation spell, "If I were to ask your name, you'd say 'Harry Potter', even if this was a ruse, and I doubt you'd drop your act voluntarily. Too risky for the lookalike market."

Harry swallowed and rolled his shoulders, muscles twinging from the stress of freezing and heart skipping uncomfortably from adrenaline. He hadn't even left the university yet, and he was already regretting this. The private auction was supposed to be for longtime clients - families that had been engaged in this subculture for years - and here this man was sounding more and more like an undercover cop. Well, an undercover Auror, technically speaking, but Harry wasn't mincing words right now. The man continued to speak quietly, "Do you know what a Devorator al Morții would do to Harry Potter? The Dark Lord may have fallen in Great Britain, but his following on the Continent did not die, nor did the Devoratorii Morții disband with his death", a brief pause, " _Death Eaters_ , Slave."

Harry couldn't help wincing as that baritone deepened in emphasis. Fuck an international Auror finding out where he'd been for the past year, and fuck any undercover agent who outbid Matei to screw their plan to hell and back. His voice was steady despite the rush of anger, and he didn't care if he was facing a reprimand for insolence, "What can I do to prove that I'm Harry Potter, _Sir_?"

A deep chuckle and the man's fingers withdrew from under Harry's chin, "Have you ever had Polyjuice, and what were the circumstances?"

Harry's head tilted slightly because he was expecting a question about Quidditch or Gryffindor, but he kept his face angled up towards the man - no, the unknown Romanian stranger, who had no way of verifying his answer, "Second Year. Two friends of mine were helping me try to figure out if a fellow student was the heir to Slytherin, so we used Polyjuice to sneak into the Slytherin common room for a bit and ask some questions", he paused, "Polyjuice is a NEWT level potion, and we technically broke a few school rules by brewing it ourselves that year, so we didn't talk about this with anyone."

"Where did you and your friends brew the potion?"

Harry's eyelids shifted, and he knew it was the saving grace of the blindfold that kept him from looking like an idiot blinking in surprise, "Girl's lavatory on the second floor. It's often out of order because Moaning Myrtle floods --", his stomach felt like it had filled up with ice when he realized just how someone else may have learned about their illicit activities. Okay, so maybe someone at Hogwarts could find out, but how could that ghost tell someone in Romania what the trio had done? A light brush of a finger over his scar jolted him out of his confused thoughts, "Correct. How does the real Harry Potter wind up in the international slave trade? Kidnapping, a lust potion, or…?"

The rush of anger had finally fizzled out of Harry, and he wasn't quite sure it was in his favor that this man now believed him to be the Savior when he was unable to stop the wizard from offering him up to the remaining Death Eaters, "Matei wanted me to be officially trained, and he was supposed to win my contract."

"None of the other prospective buyers wanted to risk a kidnapping charge or some other legal nonsense", the man paused while the translation spell took its time, and Harry frowned at the gentle tone of the Romanian, "It's one thing to have a charmed visage with the proper paperwork in the real slave's identity, but it's an entirely different matter to run the risk of international Auror retaliation. You cancelled your admissions into the Auror training program in Great Britain to supposedly travel for the past year."

"I don't recall that being public knowledge", Harry answered stiffly, annoyed at the man's implication that Matei hadn't tried to place an offer. They had talked about this for the last weeks of his training, and his lover - boyfriend seemed too sentimental to use while in school - had agreed wholeheartedly to the idea. It was the entire reason Harry had entered the University of Constanța in the first place, and there was no way he would back out. A soft touch of fingers carding through his hair kept his attention on the situation at hand, "Rita Skeeter published an article on the war losses possibly leading to subpar entry standards and cited your holiday as speculation on the inefficiencies of the British Aurors. A scathing look at the department, but possibly the nicest she's ever been when writing about you."

"Bloody hell", Harry sighed. He had grown up with his life splashed across The Daily Prophet, and escaping the overwhelming crowd of well-wishers and reporters in the wake of the Final Battle had been half the motivation of joining Ron in his visit to the Apuseni Nature Park and its dragon reserve. Crossing international boundaries allowed for disguising spells and whatnot that kept the particularly stubborn reporters from magically tracking him, but it was an awful lot to hope that a year of traveling could be taken at face value. Ron's return to the Burrow for Auror training at the end of the summer had probably set off some sort of scent for a junior reporter. The younger man - he felt horribly young and vulnerable at the particular moment, even if he wasn't sure how old the other wizard was - chose his words carefully, "Matei sent postcards with my signature on them to support the traveling story."

"Someone in the Muggle to Wixen post service leaked those to The Quibbler", the man sounded somewhat bored of the topic, "A travel column sprang up for people wanting to follow in your footsteps, though I highly doubt you visited a Crumple-Horned Snorkack reserve in Sweden. Or the Aquavirius Maggots in the Dead Sea, or the Heliopaths in Iceland, or the Gulping Plimpies somewhere in the Amazon, or --"

"I get it", Harry coughed and cleared his throat, "He sent enough postcards for people to know I was still alive, but I obviously didn't see all of those creatures the Lovegoods wrote about. It's not like we planned on my cover story being leaked to the press."

"Well, your recruiter doesn't seem to have planned well", the man's fingers tightened in Harry's unruly hair just enough to encourage him to close his mouth and keep any defensive retorts to himself before returning to their soothing, stroking path, "All of the postcards had printed messages instead of encouraging you to write your own, and no letters or cards sent to your friends and adopted family were leaked to any reporters. Since the international masking and concealing spells were in effect across several borders, all of their owls would've been unable to deliver any of their correspondence to you. We cannot afford to make these same mistakes."

 _We_ , Harry's mind latched onto that inconsequential word from that (alarmingly) detailed announcement instead of worrying about whether any reporters had put together these same clues, _What do you mean by 'we'?_ It's supposed to be Matei and him. He'd found a peace, a quietness in the submission they'd stumbled into last summer after a drunken one night stand led to a summer fling. Matei wanted him to show how serious he was about submission and giving over control, so he'd joined the training school. He was finally ready for Matei -- The gentle scrape of neatly trimmed nails against his scalp brought Harry back to the present, to a small side room after the auction his lover had lost. The man spoke softly yet kept his voice above a whisper, needing to remain loud enough for the translation spell to work, "There is nothing dishonorable in serving another, Harry Potter, but I cannot let you wander undisguised in a market of lookalikes and magically defenseless against Death Eaters, who may want to settle a score. I may have been mean in my youth, but that would be downright cruel of me, and frankly, there was more than enough cruelty during the war."

"Oh fuck", Harry mumbled more to himself than the other man, who had withdrawn his hand (damn it for being soothing and a teensy missed). He'd bollocksed this up beyond repair. All of the control and trust he had thought he was signing over to Matei for - oh fuck - three years was now in the hands of this stranger. He didn't have any access to his magic, and he'd never been physically strong, and - oh fuck - he wasn't even sure what all the contract allowed him to refuse. Even if this wizard seemed calming and gentle right now, there was no guarantee about what Harry might have to do or muddle through being done to him. The icy feeling in his chest was cracked by a strong squeezing pressure, and Harry bowed his head while he tried to take a full breath through the constricting bands of fire. Hot fear - panic - it'd be so much easier to think if he could catch his breath --

"Sh, sh", indistinct noises fell below the translation spell's volume threshold. A pressure on the back of his neck, soothing in its warmth and evenness. The man didn't have callouses on his fingers or palm like Matei, but Harry found he could choke air into his lungs when the other hand settled in the middle of his shoulders. There was just the right amount of possessiveness and support in the gesture that he could feel centered amid the chaos, and he didn't fight the gentle pressure pulling him forward into a soft suit. Harry had never been one for fabrics so he couldn't tell what the shirt, vest, or suit jacket were made of by feel alone, but it wasn't horrible. His cheek was tucked against the man's chest (damn his weakness for being calmed by a heartbeat), and the man's chin was resting on his hair, and it wasn't very horrible at all. He inhaled, and it was peculiar that the man's clothes didn't have a scent, but really, Harry wasn't in a place to judge. A pleasant rumble vibrated his cheek, "Untrackable Infusion to prevent someone from tracking me within the country. Puff adder doesn't produce a traceable scent, so it also serves to mask any scents on me."

"Within the country - are you from Romania? Who -- ?", Harry fell silent at the gentle squeeze across the back of his neck. The strange wizard sighed and slowly slid his hands to Harry's shoulders to push him back a step, "First things first, I need to find an available piercer", damn those hands for still being soothing, "It will take too much energy to recast a Concealing Charm on your scar, so embedding it into the stud will hold a long-term spell in place. Álmos will handle the eyebrow one here, and we'll get a general concealer in Hungary for your overall face", one hand strayed up to Harry's jawline, and he wondered if the man was always so tactile when he wasn't dealing with a brand new panicked slave, "I'll be able to see beneath the spellwork, as you are now, but it won't do to draw a crowd of reporters, hmm?"

"Am înțeles", _I understand_ , Harry's tongue felt a bit numb and out of his control, but perhaps that was just in his head. The man ended his translation spell with a curious inflection, "Vorbiți limba română?"

The meaning took a moment to register - _Do you speak Romanian?_ \- and Harry frowned while searching through his relatively small mental dictionary for a reply, "Nu vorbesc bine limba română."

He hadn't been taught very many phrases at the school, and it was backfiring ever so slowly now. A Romanian wizard, who was not Matei, had bought him. The man patted his cheek fondly before stepping away, the almost robotic English of the translation spell obscuring his voice, "You will have time to improve."

~

Harry couldn't help but slowly move his brows to feel the light weight of the magical piercing at the far outside of his right eyebrow stretch and pull the surrounding skin. The man had decided on a simple ball stud so it'd be less distracting for others, and he felt a detached fascination at the whole affair. There was a supposedly thriving underground market for sex workers and slaves to look like him, and yet Harry needed to blend into anonymity with piercings. The benefit to a wizard piercer was the numbing and antimicrobial salve that made the piercing itself painless and would help keep the area clean for the next few days, but he couldn't get his hopes up that all of the piercings would go so smoothly, especially when crossing international borders. Harry still wasn't sure if it was helpful for the translation spell to be cast on Álmos so he could understand the explanation aimed at the other man or not, but there wasn't a lot he could do about it. He let his fingers trace the stitching of the outer seams of his leather shorts, trying to work out energy without earning a reprimand for fidgeting or getting the scarf wound back around his wrists.

"Stai nemișcat", Harry's fingers twitched before stilling, recognizing a fraction of a second before his brain did that one of the frequent commands to hold still was being directed at him. It sounded like one of the assistant groomers, but he had never picked up on the individual voices of the staff because they didn't make conversing with the slave trainees a habit. Whoever he was didn't speak again, and Harry slowly moved his hands behind his back, hands curled into loose fists and crossing his wrists. Waiting for his small trunk of fetish gear, toys, and equipment (courtesy of the university) and the trunk of his clothes magicked into a suitcase (apparently, a traveling mode for inconspicuous blending in with Muggles) to be packed into the strange man's carriage was taking a while. He couldn't remove his blindfold unless directly ordered to do so, so there was no way to check the time, and his internal sense of time was skewed by nerves. Perhaps this was a strange and unpleasant dream brought on by the stress of the auction in the morning? Any moment now, Harry would wake up.

"Ce mai faceți?", Harry's shoulders twitched involuntarily at the silence being broken unexpectedly. Bloody dragonhide boots. The man continued unperturbed, "Cand ai mâncat ultima data?"

Harry fought the urge to cross his arms over his chest because that would look childish. He had no idea what was being asked of him, and it didn't help when either question was repeated slowly. After a moment, he shrugged and stated, "Nu înțeleg", to which he was rather sure the man swore before casting the translation spell, "What have they been teaching you? Not simple questions, obviously."

"Erm", Harry nibbled at his bottom lip. On the one hand, he didn't think he could be blamed for not knowing this man's arbitrary preferred amount of Romanian. Their trainers had explained before their group outings in the late afternoons and early evenings that the trainees would service an array of international clients at the undisclosed rooms they were escorted to, so it wasn't a requirement per se that they learn one language over another. Sometimes the strange men actually preferred being able to talk to someone who didn't know their language. On the other hand, Harry had sometimes found himself wondering why Matei hadn't slipped in a few phrases in his native tongue. He finally recited quietly, "Îngenunchează. Kneel. Deschideți gura. Open your mouth. Tăceți din gură. Shut up. Ți-ai terminat sarcina? Have you finished your chores or tasks? --"

"That is enough", the man took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and Harry was a bit glad that the spell removed the cold angry inflection from the Romanian when translating. He cleared his throat, and his words sounded a bit stiff underneath the English, "I apologize. It is not your fault for any holes in your training while here."

"Îmi pare rău, domnule", Harry lowered his voice and bowed his head slightly, pushing away the jittery feeling that this man had an immediate advantage of being able to see while he did not. It was the right amount of deference that had always kept Matei satisfied, and it often worked on the clients who were quick to snap and raise their hands. _I'm sorry, sir_ , the thought shied away from what could happen when a Sir saw fit to punish and backed up against conflict avoidance instincts, weaving its way into a peacekeeping mantra, _I'm sorry, sir_. The man sighed and slowly draped his right arm across Harry's shoulders, nudging him into a slow walk and guiding him to the carriage, "The easiest untraceable transportation in Romania is a horse drawn carriage. Wingless Muggle horses, mind you, so it would be best if we talked on the road. Hopefully, we'll get to Bucharest before your fake passport is ready on the seventh."

~

Harry shifted on the soft cushion of the carriage, sitting all the way back in the seat and drawing his legs up to sit cross-legged on the bench. He wasn't entirely sure why the man wanted them to sit on opposite sides of the carriage because his training had featured a lot of sitting and kneeling on the floor at someone's feet, but he supposed that the taller one didn't want to deal with awkward leg curling and cramping in the space. Harry didn't mind his lifetime of malnutrition leading to a short height for once; although, he was finding the University of Constanța's public uniform as uncomfortable as the first time he'd put the leather shorts on. Perhaps it was the metal cage Matei had been keeping enclosed around his prick for the past few weeks? Or it could've been the brief taste of a warm wind while the two of them had been boarding the carriage, teasing at hotter temperatures later in the afternoon. He still felt the warmth of the morning sun on his skin, and it was making his skin crawl under the leather, itching for the school's private uniform of nudity. But Harry wouldn't touch the button and zip until directed to.

"First", the shifting of fabric piqued Harry's interest, but he suspected the other wizard was simply getting ahead of the day's potential heat by stripping off appropriate outer layers, "I will refer to you as Harry unless we are in a public area where I need to use your registered name, Henrik Lončar. Your travel papers will be from Hungary where prostitution is legal, so your identification card will have a Venus symbol, marking it as a _licentia stupri_ , or license of debauchery. It will prevent any legal trouble with crossing borders with toys, fetish gear, and Ownership paperwork, but there may be unsavory nicknames."

"Târfă?", Harry aimed for a nonchalant question, but he was fairly sure he didn't quite make it at the ensuing silence. He tried to keep his face neutral and was momentarily glad the blindfold kept his eyes from giving away all of his emotions while clarifying, "Even if you didn't really know the language, there's a tone the men would use that made guessing the meaning clear. Enough men said it in Romanian that I figured that's what târfă means."

"You're not exactly wrong, but some of it may slip through your language barriers", another ruffle of fabric, "I'm not fond of referring to hetaerae as slut, whore, and the like instead of their name, especially in public. You will encounter those who enjoy doing so, and you will meet hetaerae who take pride in publicly reclaiming those names. I've witnessed too many slaves getting torn down with unwanted name calling, particularly by people who do not Own them. Should you want this in private, we can address that separately."

"Okay", Harry tilted his head back against the cushioned back of the seat and settled his hands on his knees. He'd never been thrilled or turned on by the strange men talking loudly and even shouting those words at him, but he hadn't really been in a position to argue against the language. Harry and the other slave trainees went on those group excursions to semi-public clubs to gain sexual experience and were paid to do so, so if the shoe fits. He concentrated on the minute shifting of the carriage bench and the feel of the cushion against his bare skin instead. The Cushioning Charms were remarkably well done and blocked the bouncing from the cobblestones and potholes from newer roads. The man continued to address him, "Second, I plan on keeping that blindfold on you until we reach the first inn tonight. I don't want to deal with any attempted escapes en route, and -- "

"Why would I try to escape?", Harry frowned and raised his head, choosing to face the general vicinity of his Romanian Owner instead of trying to focus in a particular direction. He cocked his head to the side and let his recently pierced eyebrow raise in skepticism, "I can't remove this blindfold on my own, and I'm all but blind without my glasses, and I'm magically restrained, and despite being found in Romania, I'm not from here. We've clearly demonstrated that I don't know the language, and the only money I can access is in London", he took a deep breath, "I'm still rather shocked that the plan Matei and I had fell through, but I can't change that you outbid him. I'm also fairly confident there's a clause that prevents me from leaving in the contract, so I'm stuck here whether I'm happy about it, like it, or not."

"How brave and self-sacrificing of you", the wizard cast a Cooling Charm, which Harry was grateful for but unwilling to admit to right now, "You may be my first hetaera, but I grew up with sclavii - slaves - in the house. I am aware of the legal and magical authority I have over you, Harry. I Own you for the next three years, and as long as I don't kill you, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, even if you don't consent to it because you are my property", he paused while Harry crossed his arms over his chest, adrenaline reentering his system at the minefield of horrors the next three years could be, "I made many mistakes in my childhood, and I am not proud of my role in the war. I do not regret taking over the running of the household while my father has been incapacitated, and surprisingly enough, taking on the responsibility of our theows and assisting my mother in overseeing our taeogion was a crash course in humility, responsibility, and learning how to be a better adult from my mistakes. I don't want to be a cruel Master, Harry, but I can understand why you might not trust me."

Harry licked his lips nervously, "You talk like you're recently of age. I'm not _older_ than you, am I?", and swallowed at the warm chuckle that sounded genuine, "No. Nineteen. I'm actually a few weeks older than you."

"Your father is incapacitated?", Harry uncrossed his arms and folded his hands together, a sudden fear that he might be drafted into caring for a dying man bubbling up from a pessimistic part of his mind, "Is he sick?"

"It all started with his first trip to prison", a brief pause and then a sigh, "De facto started running the household with my mother when I was fifteen, and he officially passed on the keys the next year, more or less."

Harry wished he had something that he could fidget with instead of failing to stop himself from tapping his fingers along his thigh. It didn't help that there was a tension in the magically cooled air of the carriage, and he had no clues as to what prompted the change in the other man, "It can't have been easy with the war starting and all. I'm sorry -- ", the harsh bark of laughter that cut him off reminded Harry of Sirius with the dark self-deprecating underbelly of a man trapped in a situation of his family's making. He picked at the stitching of his leather shorts and waited for the joke to be revealed.

"He was a Marked Death Eater", Harry winced, but the man's Romanian sounded as neutral as the translation, "He received the Dementor's Kiss last autumn for his actions in the First War, attempting to cover them up after the Dark Lord's fall, and his assistance of the Dark Lord during the Second War. He's legally considered dead, so I'm the Head of the House and the family estates."

"Did he actually - er", Harry stuttered over the cringing realization he was in the middle of asking a fellow young adult if his father had in fact died after the Kiss when it was within a year of happening. Fucking hell, did he have a horrible filter and bedside manner. The other man took pity on his half voiced question and spoke quietly, just enough above a whisper for the translation spell, "The body can exist without the soul, but it doesn't tend to do so for long. Most victims die within the first five years of being Kissed, so his cremated remains will probably be mailed home to be interred in the mausoleum of the family cemetery before your contract ends."

"Oh", he could kick himself for sounding so idiotic, but Harry cleared his throat and tried to say an actual word or two, even if it was hesitantly strung together while walking on eggshells, "He might've been a Death Eater, but he was still your father, so if his ashes arrive while I'm at your home, I won't - er - dance on his grave, in a manner of speaking."

He couldn't be sure if it was the thickness of emotions that obscured the spell's translation ability or if the man had temporarily ended it, but Harry could only nod at the quiet, "Mulțumesc", and let the relative silence take over. The tension eased away with the rhythmic creaking of the wheels and the muffled noises from behind Harry where the driver was directing the horses. Families were complicated to traverse even before a war got thrown into the mix, and he found that it was both easy and hard to remain neutral about loyalties getting twisted up by Voldemort's influence. Harry Potter was Owned by a Death Eater's son. It left a weird taste in his mouth, but he had never put anything in writing about a prospective buyer needing to have fought with the Order of the Phoenix. He'd left Britain to avoid the fallout of the war because it was in his face and too much to take, but he hadn't really given much thought to or asked anyone about how the war rippled outside of his country. Matei hadn't provided very many details on why Harry needed to be magically disguised during training other than the international Death Eater groups still being quite active because they weren't tied to the cult following of the Dark Lord to the same extent as the original British ring. There was a strong anti-Muggle sentiment, but Muggle-borns and half-bloods weren't always looked down upon since different factions viewed these witches and wizards as proof of magical superiority besting Muggle genes.

"Îmi pare rău, Sclav", the man muttered the translation spell and repeated himself, "I'm sorry, Slave. You should not have to pretend to care about an issue this thorny. We will cross that bridge if we get to it", he cleared his throat, "I would still prefer to wait until tonight to reveal my identity. You won't be cooped up inside this carriage and can have some privacy in our lodgings, should you want to be alone to process."

Harry shrugged and carefully maneuvered into laying down on his back on the bench, knees bent and leaning against the back of the seat. Judging the passing of time blindfolded wasn't a skill he'd had to hone in training, and it was easier to go along with his Owner's strange request than to insist that he could handle knowing the man's name now. It was probably a well-known family in the Eastern European Pureblood social scene, and he'd probably inherited some familial company as part of the estates that people knew about, and it was more than likely going to be embarrassing to admit to him that Harry had never heard of the family name or company. Better to let his pride remain intact for a little while longer.

~

"E timpul să mâncăm?", Harry scowled in the general direction of that teasing tone while he stomach growled. The man grumbled to himself before the lifeless translated words overrode his voice, "Is it time to eat?"

He shrugged half-heartedly and let the scowl relax away, "The University provided lunch at noon, but I'm honestly not sure what time it is. I think I dozed off for a bit", Harry ran a hand through his messy hair and felt that the suspicion was true in how tired his muscles felt, "I should probably get used to whatever schedule you want me on though, right?"

"I'm used to lunch at noon as well", a shuffling noise like something being opened caught Harry's attention, and even though he could only see the inky blackness of the blindfold when he tried to open his eyes, he still found himself turning to look towards the opposite bench. The man's Romanian was almost quiet enough to miss, "May I feed you?"

Harry opened his mouth and quickly closed it to keep himself from letting a barely considered and incredibly sarcastic quip fly. He didn't have a lot of experience with hand feeding because it took patience and enough time to smooth out the trial and error phase that Matei had wanted to devote to more immediate activity, but it wasn't an unusual request. Other trainees had experienced degrees of hand feeding or being forced to eat on the floor, yet he could also feel the emotional elephant in the room - Harry would have to demonstrate a certain amount of trust to let the man do this while unable to see and likely to have difficulty feeding himself. He took a deep breath to fortify his pride and nodded before sitting up on the bench, turning, swinging his protesting legs over, and sliding off his bench to the floor. Thankfully, the man's shoes were centered in front of his bench, and Harry didn't have to waste time crawling around and searching. He let his fingers hover over the smooth material of the man's suit trousers, tracing up those long legs and settling into a kneeling position with one hand lined up with the outer seam of each thigh.

"Treabă bună", the air crackled with a different translation spell that didn't cover up the lilt of the Romanian, though it did lose the proud tone, " _Good job._ " Something warm was fluttering around in Harry's chest, but he couldn't say it was unpleasant. The soft pad of the man's thumb ran across his bottom lip, and he opened his mouth instinctively, even as he admonished his brain for falling back on habits built up from blowing men. Widening his mouth to take the bite sized piece of bread without inhaling it certainly wasn't going to land Harry any awards for gracefulness, but he was glad for the blindfold, which was tricking his brain into feeling less self-conscious because he couldn't see himself look like an idiot. The bread was covered in some sort of spread - something familiar that he couldn't place buried under mayonnaise and garlic. The acidic burst of a cherry tomato followed by another piece of bread, but the spread was different. Some sort of oil and finely chopped onions took the forestage of his tongue from the thick base that might've been sweet. A chunk of cheese - Harry was pretty sure it was feta, but he wasn't willing to bet anything on the guess - and then the garlic version of the spread was back. The pattern repeated until it lulled Harry's muscles into a pleasantly relaxed state, and he wasn't sure if he could eat anymore.

"Salată de vinete cu usturoi sau cu ceapă? _Eggplant salad with garlic or with onions?_ ", Harry blinked at the question and chewed on his bottom lip while thinking over how he'd missed eggplant and which version he liked best. It sounded horribly noncommittal, but he rather liked the pattern the man had set with both. He accepted a cherry tomato and asked, "What is the oil with the onions?", to delay a response, but, "Ulei de floarea-soarelui. _Sunflower oil_ ", didn't help. Harry hummed and slowly took the piece of bread with the oil and onion spread into his mouth, keeping gentle suction on the man's fingertips until they withdrew and the first two returned with a dollop of the mayonnaise and garlic one. He licked the fingers clean and felt the almost anxious fluttering in his chest expand into a crack, oozing warmth behind his heart, in between his lungs, and down in his gut. The man gently untangled his fingers from Harry's tongue, which would've much preferred to be suckling them again, and he nestled his cheek in the soft, who knows how expensive fabric of a nearby inner thigh. He licked his lips and was surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded, "Both, but not mixed together. Earlier pattern was good."

"Treabă foarte bună. _Very good job_ ", the proud voice was back, and Harry couldn't help but smile into that warm thigh. He did good, he did good, he did good. An unacknowledged tendril of fear loosened, and he nuzzled that inner seam unsure of what to do with all of the soft warmth inside his chest. His Owner wasn't Matei, but Harry could still please him, still do good, still be good. He rolled his current favorite phrase (Treabă foarte bună) around between his warm skin and gooey heart and relaxed muscles, and he tried to ignore any thoughts on how nice it would've been to know this phrase sooner. A soothing weight in Harry's hair reigned in the feeling of floating, and he tried to concentrate on those fingers carding through his messy hair. Slowly, he became aware of the magically muffled sounds of chewing and realized the man was making a go at eating his own lunch one-handed while petting his hair. The feeling of sweat cooling in the small of his back. The background creak of the wheels. An unsettlingly pressure in his stomach. Had he eaten too much? It was hard to tell when his skin felt so warm and his throat felt so dry. _Parched like a bloody desert_ , Harry sat up incrementally.

"Ce mai faceți? _How are you?_ ", he squinted despite knowing the blindfold hid that type of facial expression. How was he? Tired, a surprisingly deep muscle aching tired. A buzzing afterglow of warmth and contentment that didn't feel shallow. Damp like his body had done something to merit a light glaze of sweat cooling against skin that didn't quite feel - expected. It was more than warmth; a heady heat, an uncertain feverish sensation even without the usual visual cues. Lead in his stomach slowly turning and forcing a pressure downwards. Was something trying to drill out of his body? No saliva. Agonizing flames licking up and down his throat. Harry ran a barely useful tongue over his dry lips, "Thirsty."

A glass was pressed into his hand, and Harry chugged the cool liquid gratefully. Since when did water taste so amazing? So refreshing and -- The lead in his stomach shivered, ran hot then cold, and then a feeling of frayed magic in the air like a rope being worn through snapping. Harry's body shivered from a cold chill, and the blood drained from his face as he froze. His prick was locked up in the cage that Matei was fond of, and yet he could feel a hot liquid soaking through his shorts. He couldn't breathe as his brain struggled to slot all of the pieces together because he was a grown ass adult and could not have just pissed himself like a child. He didn't have any childhood memories of this because Aunt Petunia made damn sure he was potty trained while living in the cupboard under the stairs. But unless it was a worrying amount of blood from a spontaneous wound, there were no other options for the dampness encasing his legs and dripping down to the floor below. Fucking hell, that smell? That was wrong; even without any medical training, Harry's brain was sending off unhelpful alarms and warning bells that smelling like something died was bad.

He shivered at the weird feeling of liquid running up the individual hairs on his lower body while being drawn away from his skin. Harry blinked, confused for a moment at the darkness before his eyes, until he remembered that he was blindfolded. He could feel the blazing heat of the sun and a cool breeze against his arms. Did someone open a window in the carriage? The interplay of heat and cool extended below his waist even, which meant his shorts were gone. When did that happen? He couldn't remember taking them off. Did the other wizard do it? A panicked feeling riffled through his last memories while taking stock of his physical body being still and standing. When did the carriage stop? How did he come to be standing outside in the grass? Why was the blindfold warm and damp? The completed puzzle shocked Harry into gulping a deep breath, and suddenly, he was back in his body, shivering in the August heat and tears being wicked away by his blindfold. His insides were curdling in shame -- His face was hot with embarrassment (and probably fever) -- He had never felt so humiliated in his life, not even when Matei had saw fit for Harry to be punished by -- (but those thoughts would not lead to calming down, so they are unceremoniously shoved into a back corner to be dealt with later) --

"Harry?", a deep voice that seems familiar, "Are you okay?", radiates calm control in the chaos, "I'm sorry", a centering force in the darkness, "Slaves are often caged and given a temporary Catheterization Charm for auction, but I didn't think to check", a gentle pressure against the back of his neck, "Someone misused the spell for long-term chastity, and they were unsafe about it", a supporting pressure in between his shoulder blades, "You shouldn't have worn that cage for so long, and you definitely shouldn't have been magically catheterized the entire time", that feeling of safety, of being lightly caged into his Owner's arms. Harry's brain sifts through the information being thrown at it and judiciously decides to ignore how a stranger from Romania could sound familiar because they are the only thing standing between him and a full breakdown before the day's 24 hours are up. Because Matei got a thrill out of humiliating him, because Matei loved locking his prick in a cage for weeks at a time, because Matei got off on orgasm denial and leaving Harry to beg (through a dry orgasm if he was lucky), because Matei didn't want to risk his job as a trainer to bid on a trainee, because Matei coincidentally maneuvered him into joining the slave training school he already worked at, because Matei acted all possessive and caring only when it benefited him, because a trainer should know safe magical catheterization dos and don'ts, because Matei left him on the auction block, because Matei did this to him.

~

The inn on the outskirts of Medgidia was small and probably looked like any other cottage to passersby, but a confirmation flash of a spintria had peeled back the respectable veneer. A brass coin about the same size as a knut with its singular I denomination marking on one side and image of a mouth wrapped around a penis on the other led to Draco setting two suitcases against the warm pine wall next to the door. He could hug the wix who figured out the spellwork for a trunk to turn into a suitcase for ease at traveling among Muggles because this form of luggage was much easier to carry from the carriage. Not that many Owners aspired to schlepping around their own luggage, but he had a feverish sclav who was still blindfolded and being escorted by the driver, who had pitied the obviously sick young man too much to accept the V-spintriae tip even if the brass image of a tongue buried among the folds of labia could cover a week's worth of driving clients.

When Draco returned from his second trip with the suitcases that were their respective toy, gear, and equipment trunks, Harry had crawled into the bed closest to the door, wrapped himself in the multicolored quilt, and curled into the fetal position. He'd been tossing and turning on his bench unable to settle down comfortably and sleep any deeper than a light doze ever since the Catheterization Charm failed, and the only improvement was that he seemed to have stopped the uncontrollable bouts of shivering. Draco sat on the edge of the other bed and pulled the black rotary dial phone closer to his side of the nightstand, dialing the number of a local Healer who accepted sclavii clients. He slipped a thin platinum band with a voice disguising spell embedded into it from his right thumb to the nightstand while listening to the ring of the call connecting. The enchantments attached to the phone created a crackle like static when the man answered, "Alo?"

"Alo, Tămăduitor Cojocaru", Draco glanced towards the huddled form on the opposite bed and decided to cut to the chase, hoping the Healer would forgive the lapse in politeness, "Am nevoie de ajutorul dumneavoastra. Acceptaţi spintriae?"

Healer Cojocaru didn't hesitate, a sign that he was still in the sclavii business, which boded well for Harry, "Da, I accept spintriae."

"Mulțumesc. The University of Constanța graduated this morning", Draco knew the privacy and untraceable spells attached to the phones along the black ribbons, roads in between slave training schools and facilities, made allusion a time consuming holdover from the previous generation of Owners, but he couldn't ignore the internal warnings of his grandfather Abraxas when it came to appropriate secrecy. The Healer continued, a welcome sign that he wasn't new to the trade, "I am aware. The pharmacy has cold medicine and -- "

The blond cut off the well-meaning advice because even without a certificate or degree in Healing, he knew something was wrong and over the counter medication would not be enough, "E o urgenţă."

Healer Cojocaru cleared his throat, and Draco watched the lump under the quilt shift and curl tighter in on itself, "Symptoms?"

"There's abdominal pain, foul smelling discharge, fever, chills, and bodily aches", he spoke quietly even though he was rather sure Harry had finally fallen asleep. A rush of static breath, though the Healer was professional enough to not gasp, "What happened?"

"Improper long-term Catheterization Charm", Draco clenched his jaw at the flare of anger. It would take a lazy trainer, a grossly unqualified man masquerading as a trainer, or a wizard who enjoyed hurting his sclav with the inevitable future side effects to knowingly misuse and abuse this charm. Mediwixen and Healers learn a sequence of spells and charms to rotate when a patient needs long-term catheterization, and knowledgeable trainers follow in their footsteps if they want to be safe and avoid the humiliation of catheterization failure. Healer Cojocaru swore quietly, "Futu-i. That would take weeks to develop."

The anger barely simmered down to prevent a rant, but Draco knew he would only be preaching to the choir when it came to remarking about the lack of safety, "Can I bring him tomorrow morning?"

"Da, first appointment of the day", Draco wasn't horribly surprised by the wait. The sun had set and a clinic would have to be found for any life or death emergencies after Healers went home for dinner. He thought back to the off-white, lumpy discharge and refused to let his voice waver, "What should I do tonight?"

The Healer hummed and set off a burst of static while thinking for a moment, "Fever reducer. Sleep aid. Calming Draught if necessary. Is his urethra blocked?"

"I'm not sure", he shrugged his left shoulder and readjusted the hold of the phone in his right hand, a flicker of uncertainty trying to worm its way into his gut, "If the discharge is from his bladder, no."

"Do you have a travel ring for him? Proper sequence of charms and rest period for safe catheterization."

"Da. He's already wearing one", Draco wasn't sure if it was the shock of this morning's auction, the fever from whatever was infected, or both, but Harry had calmly accepted the plain bronze ring and put it on without questioning him. Even after he had been forced to end the translation spells in order to focus on cleaning Harry and the carriage, there hadn't been a spark of recognition at his voice. He hoped it was emotional shock and not a sign of anything physical, nodding at the Healer's advice, "Keep it on him until the antibiotic kicks in. He will take first dose tomorrow and urethra may burn in the first few days."

Draco indulged his concern for Harry Potter the newly contracted hetaera, "I do not want his identity getting out", even while he knew the response that was coming because all Owners wanted their sclav's identities to be kept secret, "Nondisclosure agreement. Standard procedure for sclavii."

Harry shifted on the bed, and Draco decided to not drag the conversation out when the Healer couldn't say anything more that would help him get the sick man through the night as comfortably as possible, "Mulțumesc, Tămăduitor Cojocaru. La revedere."

"La revedere, Domnule Malfoy."

"Sir?", Draco settled the receiver back onto the phone and pushed the clunky yet appreciated alternative to owl post along the black ribbons farther back on the nightstand. He angled towards the quilted form with the black strip of the cotton blindfold just visible in the hole for breathing and pressed his fingertips into the knees of his trousers to keep himself from reaching out. Harry yawned and shifted in the middle of the blocks of bright colors, "Er, what should I call you?"

Draco swished his wand across his throat and spoke in Romanian, "Stăpâne sau Domnul meu. _Master or my Lord_ ", he paused, "Numele meu. _My name_."

"Am I still allowed to…?", Harry trailed off and brushed the edge of the blindfold with his fingers, uncurling his upper body enough to set up on an elbow. Draco glanced down at his charcoal gray suit trousers and pale blue button up with the cuffs undone and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Well, it certainly looked casual after cleaning Harry on the side of the road, cleaning the carriage, and unloading their luggage, but it would have to do. He'd told him this morning that the blindfold would come off in the evening. He flicked his wand in the direction of Harry's suitcase, which clicked open, and flicked his wand again to levitate the small wooden box with the familiar wire frame glasses inside to the nightstand. Draco leaned forward and untied the soft black cotton, his stomach twisting unpleasantly at the confrontation that was sure to come. Harry blinked, rubbed a knuckle in his eyes, and squinted in the direction of his knees before reaching for the wooden box and sliding his glasses onto his nose. The man froze, emerald eyes widening and lips parting but no sound came out.

"I did not kidnap you", Draco inhaled deeply and impulsively decided to try to head off an argument, "I didn't swap places with anyone, I didn't trick anyone into letting you go with me, and I did not know you would be at the University of Constanța before I arrived this morning. This isn't a fever dream or even a nightmare, and I certainly did not plan this out."

Harry licked his lips and swallowed. The blood hadn't drained from his face (perhaps the fever prevented that) and he wasn't exploding in anger (perhaps the shock hadn't worn off yet), so Draco was willing to put this down as going well so far. Unless the fever had addled his brain to the point that he didn't truly recognize his former schoolmate? Harry wet his lips again and croaked out, "M-Malfoy?", which eliminated that theory. He ran a hand through his hair, which was curling around his ears and probably longer than the last Harry had seen it at his trial, nervously. Harry blinked, drew the quilt closer around himself, and his voice was a little stronger when he spoke, "What the fuck are you doing here? In - In -- "

"You didn't pursue an individual path of serving a lover and simply incorporating your D/s into an existing relationship, which is the most common method the people you would normally associate with choose. For them, submission may be a weekend event with a sex worker, but you got involved with a training school, Harry", he flinched at the familiar address, "You entered into the slave trade, which has been going on for millennia, and whether you like it or not, Pureblood families are far more likely to show up to an auction, as they've been doing for centuries."

Harry's facial muscles weren't in agreement about whether he was confused, outraged, or shocked, "But you - I -- ", and Draco thought not sighing was more than enough in terms of politeness. He wasn't keeping him blindfolded and ignorant for the whole trip back to Britain, "You are Harry James Potter and signed a legally and magically binding contract rendering you afluit property for the next three years. I, Draconis Lucio Malfoy, also signed the contract and therefore Own you until the contract ends."

A spark flashed in those green eyes, which Draco would always recognize from their school days even if he did wish the passion and liveliness had more positive associations than fighting, and Harry snapped, irritated, "Excuse me if I didn't have all day to get used to this, Malfoy. I don't know if you noticed, but I was blindfolded and you disguised your voice."

"I needed to redirect my magical focus to cleaning instead of translation, so I actually stopped directly disguising my voice after the Catheterization Charm failed", Harry's eyes flickered off to the side towards the wall behind Draco, and he couldn't really blame the proud Gryffindor for the bright pink blush that had crept across his face. Even people who got off on humiliation, especially in that form, weren't comfortable with unexpected and, in a way, nonconsensual wetting. He motioned to the ring on the nightstand, "Rings and other more temporary jewelry than piercings can have spells embedded into them. This one happens to indirectly disguise the wearer's voice, so I only sound vaguely familiar to those who have heard me before."

Harry settled back down onto the bed, laying on his back and pulling the quilt up under his chin. He had a blank look that reminded Draco of the youngest Slytherin students during his seventh and eighth years at Hogwarts, and while he could comfort his fellow snakes with ease even this past year, he wasn't laboring under any delusions that Harry would be more comfortable in his presence right now. Draco stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt, speaking slowly, "We have an appointment with Healer Cojocaru first thing tomorrow morning. He recommended a fever reducer and sleep aid tonight, so I need to find a pharmacy", he kept his pace even and slow as he walked to the door, "I'll stop by that Greek tavern we passed on the way here for dinner, and I expect you to at least try some of the Greek salad."

Draco pulled the door shut and tapped the doorknob with his wand. As much as he disliked locking Harry inside like a prisoner, the last thing he needed was for a feverish and sick celebrity to try to make a break for it and stumble into a Devorator al Morții or a reporter. Harry had already gone over the reasons why it made sense to remain with Draco instead of running away, but honestly, there was no discounting the nonsensical, impulsive option when a former Gryffindor is involved, and that didn't even touch their past history. He rolled his shoulders and sighed, regretting taking the blindfold off, before walking down the hall to the side exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian that appears in Chapter 1:  
> [Useful Romanian Phrases](https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/romanian.php)  
> Bună dimineața = Good morning  
> Vorbiți engleză? = Do you speak English?  
> Am înțeles = I understand  
> Vorbiți limba română? = Do you speak Romanian?  
> Nu vorbesc bine limba română = I can't speak Romanian well.  
> Ce mai faceți? = How are you?  
> Nu înțeleg = I don't understand  
> Mulțumesc = Thank you  
> Alo = Hello (on the phone)  
> La revedere = Goodbye  
> …  
> [Romanian Phrasebook](https://wikitravel.org/en/Romanian_phrasebook)  
> Am nevoie de ajutorul dumneavoastra. = I need your help.  
> Acceptaţi…? = Do you accept…?  
> E o urgenţă.= It's an emergency.  
> Numele meu e ___. = My name is ___.  
> …  
> Dictionary / Google translate  
> Stai nemișcat = Hold still  
> Cand ai mâncat ultima data? = When did you last eat?  
> Devorator al Morții = Death Eater | Devoratorii Morții = Death Eaters  
> Îngenunchează. = Kneel.  
> Deschideți gura = Open your mouth.  
> Tăceți din gură. = Shut up.  
> Ți-ai terminat sarcina? Have you finished your chores or tasks?  
> Da, Stăpâne. = Yes, Master. | Da, D/domnul meu. = Yes, my L/lord.  
> Îmi pare rău, D/domnule. = I'm sorry, S/sir. Depending on context, Domnule may be used to mean Mister / Mr.  
> S/sclav = S/slave | S/sclavii = S/slaves  
> Târfă = Whore, slut, cunt, etc.  
> E timpul să mâncăm? = Is it time to eat?  
> Treabă bună = Good job | Treabă foarte bună = Very good job  
> Salată de vinete cu usturoi sau cu ceapă? = Eggplant salad with garlic or with onions?  
> Ulei de floarea-soarelui = Sunflower oil  
> Futu-i = Fuck  
> Tămăduitor = Healer


	2. Acceptance (Aug 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While these terms are explained in the fic, I wanted to make it easier to reference these words that have mostly been borrowed.
> 
>  **Ethelry** : Derived from the Anglo-Saxon futhorc for inheritance or inherited estate, eðel (ethel), which may be more recognizable as the Elder Futhark Odal / Othala. It's the term applied to this system of slavery.
> 
>  **Taeog** : A house slave, may be assigned to any task that is traditionally done inside the home (laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc.). Borrowed from the term used in south Wales for a native serf that literally denoted someone "belonging to the house" of the lord's manor (pl. taeogion); see [Taeog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeog).
> 
>  **Theow** : A land slave, may be assigned to tasks that were traditionally outside of the main home, even though modern houses may have floors, wings, or small buildings attached to their homes for these purposes (farming, gardening, tending to animals, etc.). Borrowed from the Old English term for a slave equivalent to the thrall in Scandinavian serfdom (pl. theows); see [Thrall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrall).
> 
>  **Hetaera** : A pleasure slave, is kept most often for sexual activities. It depends on the contracts and the families as to whether taeogion and theows also engage in sexual activity and what hetaerae may do in addition to sex. This can include service chores for their particular Owner (such as cooking their meals), providing entertainment (a non-sexual example would be playing an instrument), and assisting taeogion and theows in other chores. Borrowed from the Ancient Greek term for a "companion" prostitute (pl. hetaerae); see [Hetaira](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetaira).
> 
> ~
> 
> In this fic, the dragon reserve in Romania has been placed somewhere in Apuseni Nature Park (nearest city is Cluj Napoca).

Harry stared at the soft cotton bag that looked rather like what he used to carry his books around at Hogwarts in sitting on the end of the bed, the black a harsh contrast against the brightly colored blocks of the quilt. A piece of parchment sat next to it with neat cursive: _Place clothing in bag and button the flap closed to activate Laundering Charms_. He shifted his weight from one foot to other, very aware of the damp spot across the front of his trousers. They were a stretchy cotton and reminded him of sweats he'd seen Muggles wearing when exercising except the elastic waistband had been replaced with drawstring and the somewhat billowy cuffs ended at his knees. Thankfully, Malfoy had done something to prevent the awful dead smell from being noticeable, but he hadn't been able to stop the unsettling chunks of off-white discharge from spreading on the black fabric. God, it was unnerving to feel and made Harry's stomach turn while avoiding touching the fever red flesh in the shower. He complied with the note and set about stepping into the pale blue pants with an inside lining of gauze that were folded neatly on the quilt before putting on an inconspicuous Muggle outfit that Malfoy had assembled from Harry's suitcase. It had been a year since he'd worn pants let alone any of the well-worn jeans, t-shirts, or trainers, and it felt odd to cover up so much of his skin. Odd, but comfortable in a nostalgic sort of way.

"I presume it's a Muggle reference?", Harry readjusted his glasses and glanced over his shoulder. Malfoy had returned from his first trip with their suitcases to a new carriage and looked surprisingly nonchalant in pale gray suit trousers and a white button up. Harry restrained himself from a comment about t-shirts in relation to the long-sleeved shirt rolled up to the elbows and glanced down at the faded red and black shirt. He squinted at the vaguely bird-like form and shrugged, "Hand me down from my cousin. I think he supported Worplesdon Phoenix for a bit until a different football team caught his eye."

Malfoy's eyes tracked the incorrect phoenix, but he didn't comment on Muggles getting the color and anatomy wrong. He simply levitated the laundry bag into Harry's suitcase of clothing from his previous life and picked up the last two suitcases, motioning to the door for Harry to leave first. He briefly wondered why Malfoy was carrying all of their luggage when Harry could reasonably handle his own until he saw the side door propped open and letting the early morning light into the hallway. Freedom. The excited flutter in his stomach twisted into a disappointed heaviness, though, because Harry knew it wasn't the peach and pink light of escape. He slowly walked across the carpet and felt his heart shudder at the slightly cool air from the morning dew that hadn't been burned away by the August heat yet. He was in some small town in Romania and entirely reliant on his childhood bully to get him medical care that he couldn't deny needing. He obediently sat in the carriage and stared out the window at the passing buildings, horribly familiar and utterly alien brick buildings with signs in Romanian. The building they stopped in front of didn't look any different from the surrounding ones, although Harry wasn't sure the thorny bushes under the windows were what people would consider cheerful decorations.

"Bună dimineața", a man whose dark brown hair was starting to go gray instantly opened the door after Malfoy's first knock, and Harry was relieved to see the minty robes of a Healer. Malfoy inclined his head and led the way inside, "Bună dimineața, Tămăduitor Cojocaru."

The man's eyes crinkled as he smiled and ushered them into a small exam room off to one side of the entrance, "I see why you worried about a nondisclosure agreement, Domnule Malfoy. A tămăduitor keeps their word", the Healer motioned to Harry's clothes, "I need to examine you to prescribe the correct antibiotic."

Harry could feel a part of his awareness stepping to the side and separating himself from the mechanical toeing off of his trainers and stepping out of his clothes. They fit well enough and seemed comfortable against his skin, but they no longer seemed as familiar as they once did after a year of removing whatever clothes he'd been allowed to wear at the University. He neatly folded each garment and stacked them on top of his trainers before falling into the wide hipped, arms at his sides stance of presentation, eyes trained on the beige wall directly opposite him and ever so slightly unfocused. This was rather like being offered up to strangers on group excursions, and it helped to not see the specific details of men while they picked his body apart with their eyes and probing fingers. A snap of plastic gloves going on one hand then the other, and then chilled fingers were gingerly hefting his --

Harry's brain stuttered away from thinking of the heated lump giving off discharge and smelling like rot as his prick. He could feel himself recoil and step further to the side away from his body as a complicated wave of the Healer's wand produced an image of his inflamed bladder ringed with an golden halo in front of his body. Little twirling flicks and what might have been runes were traced over the hologram-esque bladder while a chilled tingling sensation rolled around his insides and down through his fever warm prick like something was being scrapped out. It was uncomfortably similar to the feeling of pissing, and yet the travel ring Malfoy had given him yesterday meant that wasn't what was happening. The horrible rotting smell intensified and Harry closed his eyes to keep the nausea from bringing up the yogurt with honey and walnuts that Malfoy had gotten from that Greek place for breakfast. After what felt like a long time but was probably only a few minutes, the Healer finished his task and snapped his gloves off, prompting Harry to crack his eyes open. The man's face looked carefully neutral, yet his eyes were hard and angry, "Bladder infection. Worst I've ever seen because Catheterization Charms should not be kept in place for that long. This had to have built up for weeks."

Harry let his eyes slide to the corner of the room while the Healer scribbled in his chart. Objectively, he knew the older man was upset with the spellcaster, but in the moment, his heart was thudding uncomfortably because he had upset him. Stripped of his clothing and on display, his instincts were blaring a low warning in the back of his mind that it had never been a good sign when a man's eyes took on that steely glint because that anger had to go somewhere, and experience told him to proceed with caution because he was an acceptable target. It didn't matter that this was a sterile, overly lit medical office and not a dimly lit nightclub with music blaring. Harry's magic was bound to his core by invisible chains once he signed off on the admissions contract, so even the self-protective accidental magic of his childhood was unavailable were he to face off against anyone with a wand. Vulnerability. That was the unseen force that had molded his compliance because doing what he could to keep the strangers - and Matei - happy was the safest route. He just didn't know what to do to make the Healer happy.

The part of his awareness that had stepped off to the side stirred and turned back to the body because the skin contact wasn't what he was prepared for. His arse wasn't being pinched as some sort of test prior to a spanking or paddling. Heavy hands weren't groping along his chest and down his stomach, insistent that his balls and prick be thoroughly manhandled even while he stood unresponsive. His flesh actually wasn't being touched by either wizard at the moment, and the lack of harsh fingertips made it easier to take a step closer to his body and try to tune back into what was happening. Malfoy was making complicated looking stitching and slashing movements with his wand that were undoing and magically fixing the seams of his clothes, which were arranging themselves around his body unassisted. Harry blinked down at the frayed cuffs of his jeans wrapped around his ankles and felt something shift around his lungs. The disconnected feeling that had sometimes taken hours to undo at the University was already starting to fade with the soft, amazingly comfortable clothes as a point to focus on. Matei had admonished him for wanting to curl up in his blanket after a group excursion because it often brought out a childish desire to nap and quickly decided it was better to keep him busy with a good fuck instead.

"Matei", he addressed the cuffs of his jeans instead of trying to meet the Healer or Malfoy's eyes, and even though the older man was in the midst of explaining the antibiotic potion in the purple bottle, both men paused their conversation to listen to Harry, "Matei liked using the cage, and he slowly kept it on longer. When we started talking about him buying my contract, he stopped taking it off for rest days entirely", his brain seemed slow at recalling even when the events were relatively recent, "I think it was the last six weeks of training."

The Healer swore loudly in Romanian and turned towards the counter on the opposite wall to scribble in his chart and continue muttering darkly to himself. Harry glanced up to the minty robe clad shoulders and took a step back at the shaking, a barely controlled anger that was making him vibrate around the edges. He felt the gentle pressure of Malfoy's hand in between his shoulder blades, fingers splaying and digging into the cotton t-shirt, and while Harry wasn't thrilled it was Malfoy, he was momentarily grateful for the centering. It had been a while since he'd seen someone angry on his behalf instead of angry at him, and it was disconcerting to feel the déjà vu and confusion as why a stranger he barely knew would appear to care about Harry. It's not like Harry had been in a position to stop Matei, even if he had known how unsafe it was to be magically catheterized for that long, and he glanced back up to the Healer, curious despite how upset the question might make the older Romanian, "What should he have done?"

"A travel ring rotates through enchantments that catheterize, slow urine production, and extra process it in the kidneys", the Healer's shoulders rolled and some of the anger had seeped out of his stance as he turned to look back at Harry, his eyes less steely and a touch more sad than before, "The important part is leaving unenchanted blocks of time in the sequence, so that the rotation is safe for long-term use. It is tricky to manually cast each step correctly, but it is the safest way to magically catheterize someone. This is why the charms and spells are woven into a ring, which used to be how people handled traveling for days at a time. Therefore travel ring."

Harry nodded and glanced down at the bronze ring, which looked deceptively boring on his right pinky finger. Why was he not surprised that an incredibly important magical object wound up looking like the man had scrounged through the discarded rings at a pawn shop? Malfoy cleared his throat and Harry's eyes flickered to the side, but he didn't turn his head to look at the taller blond man directly, "Matei also used a cage style that didn't allow for urination while locked in the device. The simplest way to prevent this from happening is to use a type of chastity device that allows for that and eliminates needing a Catheterization Charm. If he didn't want to spend a lot of money on spelled features or charmed accessories, even Muggles have safe options."

The Healer nodded, cleared his throat gruffly, and set about devoting a little more time than Harry suspected was truly necessary duplicating the chart and other forms in his file so that Malfoy would have copies. His stomach twisted unpleasantly, but he swallowed down the surprise and the bitter taste in his mouth. How stupid was he to not wonder if there were other cages, belts (he'd only ever seen them on witches from an affiliated women's university in certain nightclubs, but there was probably something similar for men), or devices that Matei could use? How blindingly trusting had he been to not consider Muggle alternatives? Matei's job involved fucking men, so he had to know about these other options; he had to know and still chose the route he'd taken because Harry's training was drawing to end. The long-term side effects weren't as important as Matei's gratification, and even though his heart clenched at the thought, his brain couldn't stop the addendum, _Because I'd be someone else's problem_.

"I am sorry you are going through this", the Healer held out the file of copies to Malfoy, who removed his hand from Harry in order to step forward and collect it and the purple bottle of antibiotic potion. The older man reiterated his dosage instructions, "A stopper full with each meal until gone. It should last until the seventh, and you can recycle bottle at a pharmacy in Bucharest. Wear travel ring and no sex until you finish the antibiotic to avoid burning pain in your urethra."

Harry nodded, feeling a bit numb and overstretched inside. He'd just had more public interaction with someone who wasn't interested in fucking him than he'd had in the prior year, and it was throwing him off kilter. Malfoy tucked the medication into a pocket of his trousers and politely extended his free hand to the Healer, "Mulțumesc foarte mult, Tămăduitor Cojocaru."

The Healer nodded and squirted a shimmering disinfectant into his hands that had a strong grape smell, which ruined the comparison in Harry's head to Muggle hand sanitizer somewhat, "Cu plăcere, Domnule Malfoy. Fă-te bine repede, Sclav."

~

Harry wasn't sure if having the blindfold off and being able to see was a better way to travel or not. He quickly grew bored of the rolling farmland, which looked remarkably the same regardless of the country, and he'd removed his trainers before stretching out across his bench. The fever wasn't completely gone yet, so he could doze off with surprising ease, but there wasn't much to break the monotony of the carriage wheels creaking or the muffled driver and horse noises. Malfoy was reading some sort of book, which Harry appreciated (he wasn't sure he was ready to talk to the snake) and disliked (not talking left him alone with his thoughts, which weren't exactly enjoyable company at the moment). It was Malfoy who casually broke the silence, "A copy of your medical file wasn't included with the contract. Did you seal those records for a particular reason?"

"Er - no?", Harry cracked his eyes open to take in the muted blue fabric of the carriage's ceiling, "I haven't been to a Healer since last summer. I got a small burn at the dragon reserve in the Apuseni Nature Park and -- "

"What about during admissions? You should've gotten a medical exam to verify you didn't sustain injuries during training", Harry pushed away the thought that he missed the inflectionless translation spell from yesterday and thought back to his 18th birthday. He remembered a lot of wand waving and him signing his admissions contract, but he wasn't sure what was part of a medical exam and what was disguising his identity during training. He shrugged, "They didn't announce which spells were medical and which were concealing my identity at the time."

Malfoy spoke slowly, as if he were trying to tiptoe around an issue, "Then who did your testing?"

Harry felt his pulse skip in a way that he hadn't since Hermione reminded him of homework he'd forgotten about in their sixth year, and he turned his head slightly to take in Malfoy's casual posture, long legs crossed underneath him on the bench and supporting a book with his wand - Harry's right fingers twitched at the memory of the smooth hawthorn in the last weeks of the war - tucked behind an ear. His eyes narrowed at the curious, open expression, "What testing?"

Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled smoothly before answering, "To check for sexually transmitted diseases and infections? As a hetaera, you were engaging in enough sexual activity that a full panel should've been run as a precaution at least every three months", Harry had no idea that worn carriage decorations could be so fascinating, but the wooden molding at the top of the windows were captivating, "It's not a matter of judgement, Harry. Even if your trainers were thorough about vetting public clients, they would still want to make sure you weren't unintentionally exposed to an infection."

Harry kept his eyes trained on the molding, "Remind me what's involved in a full panel?"

"A visual inspection and enough touch to rule out pain or discharge. Skin, urine, and blood samples. Possibly a cheek or throat swab", a brief pause during which Harry tried to not move so he wouldn't look guilty, "Is any of this sounding familiar?"

He looked down at his hands fisted into the worn black and red fabric of Dudley's t-shirt, "I had a few blood tests, but Matei never said they were for infectious diseases, or whatever."

Malfoy hummed, and Harry felt a warm wave of magic run across his skin. He blinked down at his hands as a golden mesh was revealed hovering above his skin, but he couldn't tell if it was a good sign or not when he turned to look at Malfoy, who had his chin propped on his right hand and was casually twirling his wand in his left. The blond looked thoughtful as he flicked his wand in Harry's direction and another wave of magic made the mesh jump and tingle, "Your trainer had a lot of faith in his impermeability spellwork", the golden mesh disappeared into Harry's skin with a chilly wave of magic, "I take it he wasn't fond of Muggle devices?"

Harry shook his head and turned back to look at his window's molding, "Matei thought they slowed things down too much, so he did a lot of spells."

"Do you remember what he said, whether it was Romanian or English?", Harry wasn't sure the casual curiosity was better than having no inflection because Malfoy was reminding him of Luna, and he motioned vaguely over his body, "He did most of his casting nonverbally. Not like I could learn the spells."

"I must admit I was surprised you signed on afluit", the soft swish of a page in Malfoy's book turning, "An afluit contract cannot drain or damage your magical core, but it prevents your magic from flowing and responding to even subconscious desires. The box with your wand is in your trunk of personal belongings and will unlock at the end of the contract, by the way."

"Funnily enough", Harry couldn't keep himself from grumbling his sarcasm in such close quarters, "I've already figured that out for myself, thanks."

"Then why didn't you sign a semifluit, or half flowing, contract?", Harry's heart was doing something erratic, but he wasn't paying much attention to what might be physically causing this cold dread to spread through his limbs when Malfoy's words had his full attention, "You would've been restricted in the spells you could cast, but you would've been given a job wand or torc for the duration of your contract. I would've been able to customize the approved list of spells, and you would've still been able to do magic."

Harry had turned on his side and partially sat up at some point, and a small part of him was surprised that he was breathing so evenly when he felt hot anger crackling and coiling around his muscles, "That's not possible."

Malfoy glanced up from his book and took in Harry's tense position coolly, "It used to be traditional for an Owner to take care of their first hetaera for life, and it was incredibly impractical to have an afluit slave for decades, so they were always semifluit contracts. With the switch to short-term contracts for all slaves, it's often a choice for any slave position to have afluit and semifluit accommodations."

Harry wasn't sure what else Malfoy might have been saying about history and traditions because there was a roaring sound in his ears, and he was hitting the dirt ground of this section of road - there was too much adrenaline to presently regret jumping out of the carriage barefoot - and running. Malfoy got a late start from shouting something in Romanian to the driver, but his ungodly long legs came in handy for something. Harry grunted as they crashed to the ground in a jumble of limbs and unsuccessfully tried to claw out of a strong hold, twisting in Malfoy's arms and panting, "I'll bloody - kill him - that bastard -- "

"Fucking hell", Malfoy's breathing was labored, but he wasn't panting as hard as Harry as he drug the smaller man upright, " _This_ is why you were blindfolded, Harry. This. Right here."

"Goddamn liar", Harry growled and felt his magic struggling against its invisible chains in response to the surging hot wave of anger circulating his body. He couldn't really see the field they were beside (sweat or tears or something was blurring his vision), but he could feel the persistent vice like hold of Malfoy's arms dragging him back towards the carriage, "I had to sign away my magic because it was the only fucking way -- "

"You can't renege on the contract", Malfoy had hoisted him in an awkward yet effective bear hug so he wasn't digging his heels into the dirt, "It doesn't matter if you kill Matei, and you're contractually unable to kill me. You have to wait three years to access your magic, and there's nothing you can do to change that now."

Harry glared in the direction they were traveling from because it was his only point of reference as to where Constanța lay, and he desperately wished he could do something to vent this internal boiling sensation. Destroying or at least breaking an object was a tried and true method, but he really wanted to unleash on Matei. Leave a bruise, break a bone, yell at the man until that confident smile turned into regret for doing this to him. Unsafe catheterization hurt him physically, but Harry had spent a considerable amount of time at the dragon reserve opening up to Matei about how his magic had helped him stay safe in his Muggle family's home, and saved him in duels, and he had finally agreed to the training school when he thought he could trust him. This wasn't a matter of not doing conscious magic for a few weeks over the summer between the terms; Harry was defenseless against even the least trained first year and reliant on someone else for three fucking years.

"Are you going to get in the carriage or be a bloody Gryffindor again?", Malfoy shifted his hold on Harry, expectantly standing in front of the open door they'd run out of a few moments prior. Harry wasn't any less upset with a certain Romanian he wasn't going to fucking name, but the surge of anger and adrenaline had simmered down, taking all of his earlier fight with it. He couldn't Apparate, and he had very little chances at succeeding at running or walking back to Constanța because he was still under contract with Malfoy. Harry sighed and muttered loud enough for him to hear, "Fine. I'll get in the carriage."

Malfoy unceremoniously let go and waited for Harry to feel his ankles again enough to climb into the carriage before following him. The book - a thick brown dragonhide with shimmery gold lettering in Romanian - and hawthorn wand had landed on Harry's bench in the process of the carriage stopping and Malfoy running after him. Harry carefully picked up both and handed them over, shivering at the empty feeling he got from touching Malfoy's wand. Malfoy made a point of casting the silver line of a Tripping Jinx at the bottom of the door before settling back onto his bench. He rolled the hawthorn wood between his fingers and spoke quietly, "You never think about the warmth and how alive wands feel until your magic is restricted. Being on probation is a bit like being semifluit in that I can only access my magic with my personal wand or a job wand", he slipped his wand into a trouser pocket and picked up the book, turning to the spot he'd last been reading, "You'll feel that chilly, almost dead quality whenever you pick up any wand. It's the feeling of not being able to connect your magical core with the wand's core."

"Then what's the point of keeping my wand in that box?", Harry's voice sounded raw, and he wasn't entirely sure if it sounded vulnerable or not. It'd been years since he'd heard himself sound defeated, probably back before he got his Hogwarts letter. He pushed away the sneaky fear that bubbled up from the deeper parts of his mind that this was like undoing that Hogwarts letter. Malfoy turned a page before speaking, "The box keeps someone else from stealing and damaging your wand until your contract ends. Some Owners used to play mind games about returning their wand early if the slave could open the box, so it also keeps your wand safe from yourself. You feel like something is missing when you touch my wand, but imagine that cut off feeling while you were touching your own wand. It's enough to send some afluit slaves round the bend."

Harry was too tired to feel angry or surprised because he could feel a certainty deep inside that it would not be pretty if he could touch his wand before the contract ended. He stretched back out on the bench and stared up at the blue fabric of the ceiling, letting the quiet rhythm of the wheels and pages turning replace conversation. Around noon, Malfoy pulled a basket out from under his bench, and they split leftovers from last night's dinner. Harry gave up trying to keep all the Greek names straight and hoped he'd just remember what each dish looked like if he ever got the chance to go to a Greek restaurant. He didn't mind the lamb and chunks of potatoes even with the Warming Charm, but he was still on the fence about the zucchini fritters and tomato fritters. His diet at the University of Constanța had been light on fried food (he suspected it was some sort cost saving measure because the concerns about weight gain didn't seem relevant with the amount of fucking they did), and even though his taste buds reveled in the return to grease they clearly remembered, his stomach felt unpleasantly heavy. Or it could've been the antibiotic potion, which had a hard to pinpoint sugary, fruity taste, but Harry wasn't in the mood to ponder that or do much more than sleep after lunch.

~

The end of the second day of traveling brought them to a bed and breakfast near a river. Harry didn't know where the town was (geography wasn't exactly an important lesson at the University), but he had watched the name pop up on signs often enough in the last hour or so that he was glad to see the city limits sign. The bed and breakfast looked cozy with its overstuffed cushions and afghans all over place, although the mismatched floral prints of the couches and armchairs kept reminding Harry of Hagrid, finding out that he was a wizard eight years ago, and the persistent thought, _What would Hagrid think if he could see me now?_ Existential crisis notwithstanding, he couldn't really see much to complain about when Malfoy checked them into their room, leading the way with Harry's suitcases. Given his earlier attempt at running, Harry couldn't quite blame Malfoy for only letting him carry Malfoy's suitcases, so he wouldn't be able to make a break with his own luggage. The mauve and off-white room was quiet, dated in that b'n'b style, and had two comfortable looking beds. Harry stood in front of the bed closest to the door and shifted his weight from one foot to the other while Malfoy braved the small gaudily floral bathroom attached to their room. He could see why two beds had been necessary last night when he was feverish and clearly sick, but he wasn't entirely sure what to do now. Malfoy returned and left the door propped open for the snippets of Romanian from the mirror to float into the room, sprawling across the bed on the other side of the room.

"Should I", unsure of how to ask the question, Harry found himself angling towards Malfoy, who had thrown an arm across his eyes and looked like he intended to nap until dinner. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Do you want me in a certain bed?"

"Pick whichever you want", Malfoy's voice had gone a bit grumbly with sleepiness, and he waved his free hand in the general vicinity of Harry's direction, "If you want to sleep closer to the window, you can take this bed tonight."

"Hm-mm", Harry had widened his stance into his default presentation, and he was compromising on holding still by twining his fingers into the t-shirt's hem. An uneasy feeling was creeping along the periphery of his awareness, but it wasn't blaring full warning alarms. Training hadn't prepared him for this. His bed was the de facto bed of a trainer, and more often than not, it was Matei who had stayed behind after sex. He hadn't slept alone since entering the University, and he'd been given the impression his future Owner would expect the same. He took a small step forward and lowered his voice into the adequately deferential tone that didn't anger a Sir, "So, just to clarify, you want me in a separate bed?"

Malfoy's arm slid out of the way, and his storm gray eyes squinted up at Harry while his voice sounded a bit clearer from resisting sleep, "Are you disappointed or confused by that? Because I was expecting resistance on sharing a bed."

Harry blinked and redirected his gaze to the oddly purple looking wood stain of the bedside table, which was holding a Muggle phone even more ancient than the rotary dial at last night's inn. He hadn't really thought his delivery through, but it did sound like he might be disappointed, and he was rather conflicted on whether or not he was, "Just - er - my training. Someone was always in my bed."

"I see", Malfoy shifted over in his bed after running his hand through his hair in thought and patted the mauve blanket invitingly, "Test run until dinner. If you're uncomfortable, you can sleep in the other bed tonight."

Harry slowly slid his glasses off and folded them closed before laying them on the table and lying on top of the blanket. He'd carefully stayed facing the edge of the bed because part of his mind was agreeing with Malfoy that he should be resisting the idea of sharing a bed with the other man and wanted a clear escape route. The other part of his mind stilled and went silent as Malfoy draped his right arm across Harry's chest. Feeling the heat radiate from the body curled behind him even if it was carefully not touching, the heaviness of Malfoy's arm, the fingers splayed below his collarbone - Harry couldn't fight the way his muscles relaxed into that centering presence. He closed his eyes and told himself that this was only a trial nap, and he could still have the option of sleeping in a separate bed later, but when the grandfather clock in the far corner chimed and announced in a bored man's voice, "Cina e gata. _Dinner is ready_ ", Harry opened his eyes to find himself in a Malfoy cocoon with something warm and pleasant in his chest.

Neither one was apparently dressing to impress when Malfoy simply splashed water on his face, tucked in his shirt, and led Harry downstairs to the dining room, and Harry was glad he didn't have to look through his suitcase for something nice to wear. The homemade chicken soup with bread offered to the guests for dinner was satisfying in a nostalgic way and not worth changing out of his jeans and t-shirt for. The other two guests being another Owner and slave was surreal given the lace doilies and grandmotherly atmosphere that seemed at odds with a collared woman kneeling under an antique table.

"Good evening", the wizard in deep purple robes seemed quite a bit older than Harry and Malfoy, and Harry found himself avoiding the balding man's gaze out of habit. He may not have met this specific man on a group outing, but he could feel something inside him recoil from the similarity to other wizards old enough to be his father (or grandfather) ogling him like a piece of meat. Malfoy returned the greeting politely, and Mr. Creepy motioned to Harry, "He does not have a crest on the back of the hand like a theow or on the palm like a taeog."

"We are waiting until his passport is ready to do further body modification", Malfoy carefully sidestepped the unspoken question of which of those words Harry was, "Did you recently attend a graduation?"

The man patted the woman's head fondly, "The Mykolaiv University of the Black Sea. A good school for hetaerae. Have you been?"

"Can't say I have", Malfoy seemed to take a while to chew his bite of bread, but seeing as how Harry and the woman weren't particularly interested in conversing, he couldn't get out of an answer, "I'm picking up a servant for the family estates, and other schools are better suited for theows and taeogion."

"Understandable", Mr. Creepy smiled, "And what graduation did you attend?"

"The University of Tomis in Constanța", Harry had no idea why Malfoy felt the need to lie, but he was not about to challenge him on these details, least of all in public, "Our family have had particular success with gardeners from this school."

The woman spoke quietly to the wizard in Ukrainian, and he waved his wand at a small stool that rose in the air and settled at an empty space at the large dining table with the bowl and spoon she had used for dinner. The top of her head disappeared below the edge of the table, and the tell-tale rustle of fabric and readjustment in the man's chair didn't leave much to the imagination. Harry kept his eyes downcast on the pale pink rose pattern of the bowl and found himself grateful that Malfoy wasn't decades older than him (was it only yesterday that he'd been worried he might be older than his Owner?). He wasn't chomping at the bit to really consider what all Malfoy had in mind for him because Harry had learned the anticipation and catastrophizing could be worse than the revelation of a public client's kinks. Except this wasn't just another strange Eastern European wizard, and Draco bloody Malfoy had waltzed into a slave auction. The wizard mumbled something in Ukrainian, and Harry hoped Malfoy's plan didn't involve face fucking in public because hearing the woman slurp from under the table made the last of his chicken soup less appetizing. Malfoy took advantage of their dinner guest's preoccupation elsewhere to finish the last of his water quickly, and they managed to leave before the panting Ukrainian rose in volume. Malfoy kicked off his shoes and resumed his sprawled position on the far bed with a sigh, "Such colorful characters on the black ribbons."

"Does the University of Tomis exist?", Harry stepped out of his shoes and pushed them against the bottom of the free bed, curious but not wanting to call the bullshit directly. Malfoy hummed, "Hm-mm, and we really have had success with their gardeners."

"Would that be a taeog or the other one?", Harry pulled the Laundering Charmed bag out of his suitcase and slowly stripped out of his jeans. He stepped into the bathroom to check the gauze of his pants for discharge and was relieved to not find any, but he felt it was better safe than sorry. The sweats were still extremely comfortable even with pants on anyways. Harry pulled his t-shirt off and tossed it into the bag as well before closing the flap and dropping it on the floor to work its magic. Malfoy stretched lazily, "A taeog is a house slave, and a theow is a land slave. A chef would be one of the taeogion, while the gardeners are theows. Traditionally differentiated by tattoos of their Owner's family crest on the palm or back of the hand, respectively. Non-permanent versions can be healed away at the end of a contract, as with piercings."

Harry swallowed his dropperful of antibiotic with an involuntary shiver at the sweetness, "And the whole hetaerae bit?"

Malfoy sighed, "The Mykolaiv University of the Black Sea only trains women. You met women trainees from sister schools on outings, but the University of Constanța primarily focuses on men. He was trying to determine sexuality in a roundabout and rather generational way."

Harry's nose scrunched in distaste. If there was anything that left him feeling even more slimy and contaminated than an older man looking him over for a fuck, it was men who fucked him behind closed doors and loudly proclaimed their interest in women in public. They were already making use of an underground slave market, the least they could do is be honest with themselves. Malfoy seemed to read some of his thoughts in his face and one corner of his lips rose in that familiar smirk, "To be fair, the average wix's life span skews well over a hundred, so some men are used to different levels of buggery being criminalized."

Harry shrugged half-heartedly, set his glasses on the table, and crawled into the free bed, "Gonna get old waiting for you to budge over."

"Not acclimated to Romanian time", Malfoy flicked his wand at the mauve and off-white lace lamps to dim them, "Probably won't be asleep for a few hours yet. Definitely don't wait up. Noapte bună, Harry."

Harry echoed the goodnight and turned away from the lamp, a little relieved to be in his own bed yet simultaneously not. Sharing a bed earlier had been surprisingly pleasant, but there's a difference between a sort of cuddling nap and sleeping together. At least in his training, the difference lay in earning a sleeping companion by getting Matei off directly or letting him fuck Harry. He curled the thin blanket around his shoulders and thought back to the dining table and the Ukrainian guests. Should he have offered to blow him? Harry felt something in his abdomen clench at the thought, even though he knew on some level that it was inevitable in the upcoming three years. Was it too much to at least want some privacy the first time? He might be a bit biased, but he thought it wasn't. It's not like Malfoy had wanted to stick around for the guest show anyways (perhaps he wasn't an exhibitionist?). Not to mention, the antibiotic regime meant they had to wait a little while longer. Well, it meant Harry shouldn't come for a little while longer; he was reasonably sure Malfoy could twist the advice for his pleasure if he wanted to. Harry twisted the travel ring, unsure of what it meant that Malfoy had bought a hetaera but didn't seem interested in sex. Perhaps he was simply waiting until the antibiotics were finished? It felt possible because Malfoy seemed awfully concerned with Harry's health, but it also felt off because Harry's ability to come didn't affect his ability to service. Harry pushed away the cyclical and conflicting thoughts when he realized he could hear the soft swish of pages turning. Trying to think of his Owner like he'd thought of his Trainer was making his head and heart hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian that appears in Chapter 2:  
> [Useful Romanian phrases](https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/romanian.php)  
> Bună dimineața = Good morning  
> Mulțumesc foarte mult = Thank you very much  
> Cu plăcere = You're welcome  
> Noapte bună = Goodnight  
> …  
> Dictionary / Google Translate  
> Tămăduitor = Healer  
> Domnule = Depending on context, it may mean Mister or Sir.  
> Sclav = Slave | Sclavii = Slaves  
> Fă-te bine repede = Get well soon  
> Cina e gata = Dinner is ready


	3. Acquiescence (Aug 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Added to Tags: Kink Negotiation  
> Preliminary safeword system uses a slightly modified "traffic light" system (green / yellow / red).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another case of pulling out terms for easier reference: As hetaerae shifted to time constrained contracts, the terms despoina ("mistress or lady of the house") and despotes ("master of the house") were applied retroactively to lifelong hetaerae (derived from [Despoina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despoina), either a younger sister or Underworld epithet of Persephone).

Harry wished he could say he was surprised that the carriage Malfoy and him got into in the morning had a mauve and off-white color scheme, but at least this carriage had two horses and felt like it was moving. He briefly wondered if knowing where they were going would lessen the boredom but doubted it as they rolled past more fields. Malfoy had resumed reading the book in Romanian, and Harry was left to stare at the lace doily looking thing on the back of his bench, gently twining his fingers into another of Dudley's faded Worplesdon Phoenix t-shirts. This one was an inversion of yesterday's with red on black, and he could only guess that it was amusing for the pureblood wizard to see more inaccurate Muggle phoenixes or another shirt would've been left out to wear.

"You're allowed to entertain yourself", Malfoy spoke quietly from a similar position to yesterday. Harry suspected it was Malfoy's default reading position, but he wasn't sure why when a large enough book would be heavy enough to cut off circulation in his legs. He eventually glanced up from the page with a pale finger marking his spot, "Really, Harry. We're still about two days away from Bucharest. If you have a chess set, tafl, cards, anything in your personal trunk, I'd recommend it."

Harry lifted his gaze from the bench to the mauve fabric of the ceiling, a little unsure of why he felt embarrassed to not have anything, "Just clothes, my wand, and the wooden box for my glasses. I wasn't supposed to bring any distractions from my training."

Malfoy snorted and unlatched the third clasp on his suitcase before digging around in the compartment for a book. Harry figured a comparison to Hermione wouldn't go over well because it was probably common to have one of the compartments in a magical trunk available for books when traveling like this, but he still had to concentrate on keeping a neutral facial expression when Malfoy finally pulled out a cream colored paperback with permanent tea rings and dog eared pages that looked like something only a bookworm would think of keeping. Malfoy slid the frayed red ribbon in the first third of the book before handing it over, " _ **A kvibli átka**_ , or _The Curse of the Squib_ , is a Hungarian opera based on a folktale about a witch who uses a love potion to seduce a Muggle in her village", Harry ignored the nervous fluttering in his stomach that these events sounded awfully familiar, "Their child being a Squib is considered her punishment. First section has the English translation."

"Why would I read something that's supposed to be sung?", Harry thumbed through Act I and its alternating lines of dialogue and columns of lyrics, puzzled that of all the books Malfoy was carrying around this was the one he thought of to hand to Harry. Text aligned to the right of the page occasionally popped up with stage directions, and it already looked to be a weird format. Malfoy readjusted his own book, "Reading a libretto helps you understand what's being sung because _**A kvibli átka**_ is often performed in its native language. The rest of the book has the Hungarian and German translations, so it's not as long of a read as it looks."

Harry squinted at the ending page of Act I, which was wrinkled and discolored by a long ago spill of some sort of liquid, "Do the tea stains enhance the experience?"

Malfoy snorted and turned the page of his book, "My grandfather Abraxas treated our librettos horribly in his youth. I'm still not sure if he hated that section of our library or not, but it should still legible."

"Hm-mm", Harry flipped back to the front of the English section and glanced at the dramatis personae. Orsolya is the daughter of the Countess Erzsébet, engaged to marry Count István, and is in love with the Muggle Baron Jakab (a social step down, even if he were a wizard). An apothecary owner and a collection of servants who aid in the miscommunication, potion delivery, and hiding the pregnancy round out the ensemble. If he were browsing through available books to read at Flourish & Blotts, Harry doubted he'd choose this first, but he rolled over onto his stomach into a better reading position anyways because he didn't think it'd be any worse than staring at the ceiling bored out of his mind.

. . .

"Wait", Malfoy frowned at the plate with a sandwich he was offering to Harry, who was being dragged away from the libretto for lunch, "Are they actually brewing a love potion?"

Malfoy's face relaxed into something neutral, amused, and yet polite as Harry took the offered plate and motioned with the hand holding the book, "Onstage, I mean. There can't be that much time in between Act I and II, even with all of this being sung", he paused and blinked down at the sandwich, "You can't give a real love potion to an actor, right? I thought certain ones were illegal."

"There's a branch of stage magic devoted to props potionology", Malfoy offered a goblet of pumpkin juice, and Harry had no choice but to set the book face down in order to free up his hand, "Love potions are often a Breath Freshening Potion that's been tweaked to be a shade of pink and may or may not give off spiraling steam. It varies from one production to another."

"Would Orsolya sacrificing her own pearls to make the pearl dust actually work?", Harry crossed his legs and balanced the plate on a knee so he could finally take a bite of the roast beef sandwich, "Wait, that makes the end of Act I so much more tense if she's actually brewing a potion during that song. What if she fucks up?"

"Between hours of rehearsal and stage crew, there won't be any explosions or accidental poisonings", Malfoy took a sip of his own pumpkin juice, "But that tension is what brings the audience back for Act II because there's still the possibility that something may go wrong. It's also what keeps you engaged when Orsolya brews the antidote at the end of Act II, and you're not sure if Jakab will still reassure her that he loves her or not."

"I have a bad feeling about this", Harry mumbled around a mouthful of food, "Jakab didn't start out with any feelings for Orsolya, so he's just going to go back to that, and it's definitely not a good idea for István to find out about her fucking someone else before their marriage. They're both going to leave her alone and knocked up, and she's not going to be able to marry anyone the Countess will approve of once the baby arrives -- "

"Just wait until you get to Act III", Malfoy calmly cut off Harry's speculation, and he silently turned his attention back to eating lunch. His face felt like it was burning up, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he was blushing hard enough to rival Ron's hair. He'd just channeled his inner Hermione, and it was after getting wrapped up in a bloody opera of all things. Thankfully, Malfoy was more amused than irritated by the small rant, and he didn't wander into teasing Harry about how far he'd gotten into the story. He simply took the empty plate and goblet back, so Harry could return to the top of Act II.

. . .

"Oh", Harry sighed and closed the pages on the red ribbon at the end of Act III. He turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, feeling a bit numb and emotionally wrung out. Malfoy hummed sympathetically and left Harry to process the ending in the relative silence of the carriage. István had figured the pregnancy out before the birth but still loved Orsolya enough to go ahead with the marriage and claim the baby as their first born, and Jakab was as much of a prick as Harry had thought he'd be when he wasn't being dosed up. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Orsolya, who reminded Harry of Merope Gaunt but a version centuries before the pureblood inbreeding and wealth mismanagement. He kept his eyes on the shadowed valleys in the folds of mauve fabric, "Things would've been different if Merope had had an István."

"Hmm?", Malfoy had broken his rhythm of page turning, but Harry wasn't going to look over for this, "Merope Gaunt was the penniless, mistreated, rather plain looking descendant of Salazar Slytherin, who fell in love with a rich, handsome Muggle in Little Hangleton. She gave him a love potion, they eloped, and she stopped giving him the potion some time in her pregnancy."

"He took after Jakab, I take it", Malfoy prompted after Harry had fallen silent. He nodded, "Merope didn't have anyone; even sold her most prized heirloom - the locket of Salazar Slytherin himself - to try to get enough money for food. She died shortly after giving birth to a baby boy, who took after his father in looks, Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"Riddle?", Malfoy whispered, "As in…?"

"Voldemort", Harry finished the question with a nod. For a few moments, all that could be heard in the carriage was the creaking of the wheels and the muffled hoof beats of the horses. Harry folded his hands together and let them rest on his stomach, unsure of how to dig the two of them out of the pensive bubble of sadness he'd created. Malfoy broke the silence and spoke quietly, "The song 'Kvibli' contains a lot of folkloric superstition about how to tell that an unborn baby or newborn is a Squib, but there really isn't a way to tell until you're dealing with a toddler who doesn't perform the unconscious, accidental magic associated with children. Appearance has nothing to do with magical ability."

"Yeah, I figured", Harry gave a half-hearted wave with one hand, "Orsolya's last song seems so optimistic. She's going to marry István, and she wants to fall in love with him one day, and there's so much hope that the superstitious shit is wrong and the boy will be able to inherit the Count's seat or whatever. Just seems so at odds with Merope dying in a Muggle orphanage in London, alone, on New Year's Eve for fuck's sake."

"This is folklore", Malfoy spoke firmly, in a manner that made Harry think of a stern father, "Not a biography of the Dark Lord. If you want to wallow in futility, you can read the libretto for _**A véres grófnő**_ , or _The Bloody Countess_ , a fictional story of the Countess Erzsébet Báthory growing attached to one of her victims, trying to modify her torture methods, and ultimately still killing her."

 _Bet you're fun at parties_ , Harry glanced to his left at the gray and white edges in his peripheral vision, a little skittish of his thoughts being visible on his face. He was the one who had brought the mood down with his initial Merope comparison, so the comment about futility wasn't too far off. Getting a rough summary of another opera, though, wasn't enough to warrant verbalizing his sarcasm when Malfoy probably hadn't been involved in very many social events since the war ended. Harry had continued to press the Gaunt story, so it wasn't a surprise that he'd wound up with a taste of scolding. No, throwing Malfoy's social status or lack thereof in his face with a sarcastic quip would be toeing the line of insolence, and he didn't want to experience that sort of punishment, not in the confines of the carriage if Malfoy used a whip like Matei did. Harry focused on the stitching along the bottom of Malfoy's bench instead of risking direct eye contact and let the silence reign again. Perhaps his attitude had been hidden well enough to avoid punishment as long as he didn't disturb Malfoy before dinner.

~

"Go ahead and sit", Malfoy handed over two playbills with a stylized heart shaped bottle filled with a pink potion before turning into a side door in their balcony. The swirl of red in the midst of the pink slowly undulated and created a pulsing heart that kept moving like the looping photographs of the wizarding world. The curlicue font of _The Curse of the Squib_ in Hungarian floated in the swirls of the steam rising off the potion, and Harry self-consciously wiped his hand across his trousers at how ornately carved the dark wood of the two chairs were. He had not been prepared for Malfoy to rifle through his clothing in search of adequate dress clothes and shoes after dinner, and he still couldn't tell if the freshly laundered remnants of his Hogwarts uniform was nice enough for an opera house. A lot of the witches and wizards had darkly colored dress robes like Malfoy in some sort of suit like cut because they didn't stick out nearly as much as the brightly colored dress robes Harry remembered from Britain. He slid his dress shoes off and tucked them under the chair on the right before setting each playbill down on the plump burgundy cushions. He had too much nervous energy to sit because he was in public (and that only happened with group excursions, which could only mean one thing), and the chatter of the audience filing into other balcony rooms or the seating below was grating along his nerves.

Harry paused next to the side door Malfoy had disappeared through and flexed the toes of his right foot experimentally, feeling the slim ring with a voice disguising spell shift. He wasn't trying to escape, and he wasn't really planning on chatting with any of the other audience members, but the anticipation of who was behind the door with its swirling, expensive looking carving was making his stomach flutter. He absolutely didn't want to bring up the cabbage soup from tonight's hotel, so Harry slowly turned the knob and eased the door open because knowing was better than not knowing. Despite what he'd been trying to mentally prepare himself for, he wasn't expecting a tall, broad shouldered man partially undressed and thrusting into a naked woman straddling another man's hips to take up most of the view. Harry pulled the door shut quietly and retreated to the front of the balcony. His nerves were simmering down as he took a small step away from his body and focused on the glittering jewels attached to the chandelier. It had been a while since Matei had punished him like this, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. The gentle tap on his shoulder startled him. Harry turned a little faster than he meant to and took a step away from the woman in a suit to keep from overbalancing into her.

"This is Hanga", Malfoy was settling into his chair and glancing at the inside of the playbill. The woman gave a small bow and held out a gold platter with a small piece of soft plastic on it. She tapped her right ear and smiled encouragingly until Harry slid the little object in his own. The English translation of her Hungarian carried more tone and inflection than he was expecting, "Good evening, Henrik. I am your taeog for tonight's performance of _The Curse of the Squib_. Would you like anything to drink?"

"Er - no?", Harry glanced to the platter folded under her arm and the torc around her wrist with the opera house's insignia on it. She smiled and bowed before retreating out the door Harry and Malfoy had entered. Malfoy turned a page of his playbill, "Hanga is a balcony companion, a form of public taeog. She waits on patrons before the start of the show and during intermission, and she can answer any question you may have about the opera, this production, and the opera house", he tapped his left ear, "You'll get a translation of any Hungarian you hear as long as you keep the translator in."

Harry blinked and felt an internal sense of movement more so than felt the slight rocking he'd fallen into. He'd stepped away from his body to prepare for being shared, and this was not how that went about. Malfoy had returned to the balcony instead of leaving him alone to wait for the man, which Matei had rarely done because the partial abandonment from a known person was part of the punishment. It was how Harry knew he'd gone from a minor infraction to upsetting Matei, and it was only after he was reminded of what other men could do that he earned Matei's presence. Harry squinted at Malfoy's polished and expensive looking dress shoes. Unless he wanted to watch? Harry's thoughts shivered away from those scenes; it was better to be alone than to see the cold disappointment and be ignored, just another non-person being fucked in front of someone. A warning alarm drug him back towards his body because it would be worse for him to not respond to the firm tone, " _Harry?_ "

"Îmi pare rău, Domnule", the phrase was the first thing that came to mind, a blurted _I'm sorry, Sir_ , and Harry jerked to a standstill. Sitting and talking with Malfoy in the carriages these past few days had created a false bubble, and he'd been lulled away from his training. He'd gotten so angry he'd run away from his Owner, and he couldn't stop fidgeting, and he'd disobeyed a direct order to remain within the balcony and sit down, and he was the walking definition of insolence. Harry didn't particularly want to be shared, but he knew he'd earned it. A gentle pressure on his shoulder drew his attention back to Malfoy, who'd gotten up and was gingerly guiding him to his chair, "What position are you flying?"

"I'm not flying", the utterly mismatched question threw Harry off, as did the follow up, "What ball then?", and he stared at Malfoy. He'd stepped away from his body plenty of times in the past year, but he'd never gone so far that he'd started hallucinating, and that was only thing that explained why Malfoy was rattling off nonsensical questions, "Which coin are you carrying? Ce mai faceți? What color?"

Harry rolled the playbill in his hands, nervously, "Sir?"

Malfoy frowned, "I only know those default checks. What did your Trainer use?"

 _Checks?_ , Harry glanced to the side door. He had no idea what Malfoy was trying to check, and his skin felt like it was tingling because he hadn't stepped back into his body yet. His eyes flickered away from the storm gray ones that looked worried, or perhaps concerned about something, "When is he coming?"

Malfoy blinked and looked confused, "Who?"

"Călăul", Harry's voice dropped to a whisper because it was an instinct that had always made sense when talking about The Punisher. It wasn't one man who could be placated so much as each man who visited Harry was a little piece of this Other. Matei had quickly warmed to the phrasing because it made the particulars a little less important. It wasn't Johann with an interest in whipping, or Xavier who wanted a toy that could take it rough; it was simply the Punisher and Harry knew he had to do what He wanted. Malfoy was frowning thoughtfully and tilted his head as he looked Harry over, "I work out appropriate punishments with the slaves in my care, and as much as possible, I prefer it to be done away from the scrutiny of other Owners in a public venue, such as this."

Harry's eyes darted to the door to the side room and back to Malfoy's tie. That didn't click into the pattern set up by his training, and he wavered in between stepping further away from his body to prepare for physical unpleasantry and stepping closer. If Malfoy wasn't going to share him, why did he bring him here? Harry licked his lips and rolled the playbill a little tighter in his hands while addressing Malfoy's knees, uncomfortable with having to reveal his disobedience, "But the side room?"

The confusion drained out of Malfoy's face, and he sighed while readjusting his cufflinks, "This isn't a dungeon. The threesome in front of our door were patrons with certain ticket privileges that let them take advantage of the noise cancellation spells in such rooms. I only went into the side room for Hanga, not to make scene arrangements."

"Oh", Harry spoke very quietly and tried to figure out how his body was reacting. Was that relief that he wasn't going to be used by a stranger, or was that disbelief? Maybe even a little disappointment that he wasn't useful? No, he was mostly confused and a little lost. He'd outright admitted to breaking a command, and Malfoy wasn't reprimanding him. Unless he was waiting until intermission or when they got back to the hotel after the show? Harry shook his head slightly and squinted down at the playbill, which had that funny angle things got when he stepped away from his body. Malfoy cleared his throat and spoke quietly, "What system did your Trainer use to check in with?"

"Check what?", Harry had started to unroll his playbill and roll it in the opposite direction because it occupied his hands and might straighten the poor booklet out. He hoped it wasn't an unspoken rule to keep these things after a show. Malfoy's tone had gone soft and inquisitive, "To check in with you. It's important to make sure you're still mentally and physically capable of continuing a scene, so most dungeons have basic systems with a built in safeword", a brief pause during which Harry felt his skin tingle again because Malfoy would be upset if he were to answer honestly, "Take the color example. It's not a typical question for a role-playing scenario, so everyone can remember that it's for asking whether you're okay or not. Green can mean that you're okay to continue, yellow can be for stopping or altering what's happening physically before resuming play, blue can signify the same for mental or emotional play, and red just stops the scene."

"We're not in a scene", Harry meant for the statement to sound confident and declarative, but he could tell by Malfoy quizzical look that his uncertainty had caused more of a question to come out. Malfoy tucked his playbill in an inner pocket of his dress robes and spoke slowly like he was trying to not startle Harry, "We may not be in an intentional scene with physical equipment, but entering into a contract is a bit like having a long-term scene going on in between the other ones that's in your head. Does this make sense?", Harry nodded and felt something wriggle and crack inside his chest because he could tell with a sinking, dread filled certainty that this explanation should not be new, "You may not have wanted to, but you went somewhere mentally when it came to Călăul and expecting a punishment, didn't you?"

Harry focused on the serpentine cufflinks and the shiny silver in the dim pre-show lighting. He gave a half-hearted shrug, "I stepped away. Just my usual prep."

"I don't follow", Malfoy paused and changed the route of his questioning, "What did you step away from?"

Harry glanced up at his face, skeptical of Malfoy's ignorance even though he looked genuinely confused and curious, "My body. It's easier to take a physical punishment that way."

"When did you last do this?", Malfoy's face had gone neutral in a carefully hiding an emotion sort of way, and Harry frowned at the shift away from casual questions. His eyes settled on the fancy knot of the deep blue tie Malfoy had picked out for the evening while he gave a barely perceptible shrug and tried not to mumble, "During the Healer's exam. Tonight."

Malfoy made a point of moving slowly when he tucked a finger under Harry's chin and prompted him to look up and meet Malfoy's gaze. Harry blinked owlishly and felt his insides clench under the pressure of trying to maintain eye contact. Those gray eyes had lightened to an ashen color, and it was hard to tell what exactly was going on within them. Malfoy exhaled slowly, "We definitely need to come back to this discussion, but you're still -- ", he made a vague gesture with his free hand, "Away is how you phrased it?"

Harry couldn't help glancing off to the side over Malfoy's shoulder at the muted red lampshade on the wall's golden sconce. He hadn't stepped as far away tonight as he had with the Healer because he had kept his clothes on and not been touched, and the conversation had drug him towards his body. How had he thought Malfoy was emotionless and cold back in Hogwarts when he seemed concerned about so many things? Stepping away was just what Harry did, and it wasn't like it was painful. Maybe it was a little hard to come back, but overall, he'd found this skill to be more helpful than anything during his training. Malfoy took his silence as an affirmative, "Harry, how do you come back to your body?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer and frowned slightly. He doubted Malfoy would like his response, but he couldn't really lie about a tactic, so he licked his lips and spoke quietly, "Matei would fuck me after he shared me with someone."

"I doubt that's the only way", Malfoy ran his thumb along Harry's jaw, and he felt his face relax the frown away without him really meaning to. He nodded at the prompting but wasn't sure what to do with the warm embarrassment pooling somewhere above his stomach, "Curling up in a blanket and sleeping is childish", Harry blinked at the shoulder seam of Malfoy's dress robes and the embarrassment squirmed inside, "But it helped when you dressed me. The clothes were - erm - soft?"

Malfoy cast a line of Cooling Charms around Harry's chair before holding a finger on the translator in his left ear, "Hanga? Would you mind bringing us a blanket?"

The woman looked a little puzzled when she walked into the balcony a few moments later, but she smiled and presented the deep red blanket to Harry. He stood, still feeling a little off kilter in his depth perception, and finagled the blanket into wrapping around him while he sat on the chair cross-legged in a bubble of chilly air. She bowed to both men and motioned to the lamps that were dimming, " _The Curse of the Squib_ will begin shortly. Please do not take photographs of our production or use spells for light, as it can interfere with the actors on stage. There will be a small break at the end of Acts I and II for scenery changing, and I will have drinks and appetizers. I will be in the back of the balcony if you have any questions, and please enjoy the show."

~

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other and double checked that the fluffy white towel was adequately wrapped around his waist. The idea had come to him while he'd been standing under the odd cloud mat raining down the blissfully warm water of his shower, just letting the water run over his skin and coax him back into his body. It didn't seem like a horrible request in his head, but he'd been very thorough in drying off because he wasn't sure if he could vocalize it. Whispered reminders that sounded an awful lot like Matei kept butting in that Harry needed to be careful about asking too much of his Owner and looking clingy. He still had a punishment in the works, and it would be easier to take it if he were still a small step removed. Harry carefully folded the pants and sweats he'd removed from the Laundering bag to make room for the clothes he'd worn to the opera and carried the small stack away from the brown marble bathroom. Malfoy was lounging on the far side of the large bed in blue full length pajama bottoms and a Falmouth Falcons t-shirt watching a holo-pitch game of Quidditch projected across the wall. He was fiddling with a handset that reminded Harry of an oversized remote and scowling at the transcribed commentary column. Harry pushed away the surreal feeling at seeing Malfoy look so human and walked to the edge of the bed closest to him, "Malfoy?"

"Hmm?", he squinted at a list of matches to choose from without glancing over, clearly preoccupied, and Harry's conviction wavered, "Do you mind - er - I mean, if you're not too busy -- "

Malfoy finally looked over and frowned as he took in the towel and the clothes being wrung between Harry's hands. He motioned with the handset towards the clothes, "Is there something wrong with them?"

"No", Harry's gaze shifted to the expanse of bed between them. He'd come too far to back out because now he had Malfoy's full attention and brushing off the interruption could only fuel irritation. He carefully set the now slightly rumpled stack of clothes on the beige blanket and folded his arms across his chest, "I was wondering if you could", Harry paused to take a fortifying breath and raced through the stupid sounding question, "If you could do the dressing spell? Like at the Healer's?"

Malfoy set the strange remote down and slowly scooted to the edge of the bed, "Does touch make the stepping away worse?"

Harry shook his head and unfolded his arms, a little surprised the blond was giving his request consideration, "Not if it's not harsh."

"May I?", Malfoy held his hands out above Harry's shoulders until he nodded, and he wasn't expecting the feather light touch to help until it was. Soft fingertips and palms running down his arms, tracing soothing circles across his chest, the slightest of broom callouses could be felt as fingers splayed across his stomach. Harry stared at the collar of Malfoy's t-shirt and found that his heart didn't skitter when the towel was slowly undone and lowered down his thighs. Malfoy dispassionately took in his prick, paler than the rest of him, soft, and much less irritated and infected than he'd last seen it. He ignored the pants and set about pulling the sweats up Harry's calves and thighs to nestle comfortably on his hips, and Harry felt the cracking warmth snake its way around his lungs and down his ribs. Matei had only been this gentle after a hard fuck, and it was nice to not need one to get the other. Malfoy scooted back on the bed and patted the blanket, "It's not juvenile to enjoy curling up in a blanket, you know. There's more than enough."

Harry climbed under the covers and nestled into a small hill of blanket while Malfoy leaned into the layer of pillows in front of the headboard and resumed fiddling with the handset to find a match. The names didn't look familiar, so Harry could only guess they were European teams. He angled towards Malfoy and stretched his legs out into the considerable space left over in the bed, murmuring, "Think they could make this any bigger? You're almost in reach."

Malfoy snorted and swiveled a dial on the handset to select a Cardinals v Orioles match, "The Archduke is a little bigger than two kings. It's meant for 3 - 4 people, but they didn't have anything smaller available this week."

Harry hummed and turned to the holo-pitch, a little curious to see how the teams were doing since being reinstated after the war ended. He squinted at the game as players in mostly off-white robes tossed a white quaffle back and forth. He had almost talked himself into the colors being off because of something to do with the holo-pitch transmission until the strange Chaser with the ball flew around the back of the goalposts to attempt a score and a Keeper in the same off-white robes blocked the throw, "The fuck are they doing?"

"The hotel has a large American clientele base, so they carry Kwiddle matches", Malfoy sounded a bit bored as he carried on with an explanation, "The Quidditch derived Kwiddle adds several players and another ball to each team, in addition to the usual Chasers, Beaters, Keeper, and Seeker. The white quaffle is a Skipsi, which subtracts ten points when thrown through the back of the goalpost, the three Chasers in white are Skippers, and the Keeper in the back is the Backer."

"Not a fan?", Harry burrowed into the blankets while watching the bright red robes of a Cardinals Chaser zig-zag across the wall towards the bright yellow Orioles Keeper. The four extra players on each team in white kept drawing his attention because the bludgers were more often than not directed towards them, and Malfoy made a noncommittal noise, "I grew up on Quidditch, is all. Kwiddle's more popular in the States."

"Like football and American football with Muggles", Harry nodded to himself and glanced over to the movement in his peripheral vision. Malfoy had pulled the brown dragonhide book onto his lap, and a little flare of curiosity wouldn't let Harry's attention go because the author's last name had De Flamel, "What are you reading?"

He figured the instinct to sit up straighter before answering such a question must be subconscious among the bookish, but he did appreciate that Malfoy didn't sound like he was gearing up for a lecture as Hermione would, "Nicolas Flamel was a French alchemist, who is the only known creator of a successful Philosopher's Stone. He bought relatively inexpensive hetaerae as human experiments for the Elixir of Life after his first successful gold transmutation with the Stone in 1340, and Tydrik Ruotsalainen was bought in 1344. It was still the acceptable practice to attach the Owner's surname to a slave, hence Ruotsalainen De Flamel. Other hetaerae either died from the poisonous failed Elixir attempts or illnesses they were exposed to in trying to prove the Elixir worked, but Tydrik was successfully exposed to the Black Death for several years until Nicolas declared the Elixir of Life a success and drank it with his wife Perenelle in 1348."

"He settled his affairs at the end of our first year", Harry had never really considered when or under what circumstances Flamel had created the Philosopher's Stone, but he wasn't sure he could blame the wizard for wanting to escape the Black Death. It's not like he could predict an immortality seeking wizard six centuries later would try to steal the Stone for himself. Malfoy nodded and looked relieved that Harry had heard of Nicolas Flamel, which saved a six century recap of the Flamel's lives, "Tydrik learned how to read and write, so he could assist Nicolas with his experiments as alchemy was supplanted by chemistry. Nicolas' greatest achievement in his eyes was the Flamel burner and accompanying Flamel flask set that's used in graduate level Potions labs. He passed in May of 1993 with Perenelle at 691."

"What did Flamel's wife do?", Harry occasionally regretted sleeping or talking through most of History of Magic because he didn't remember ever learning about what the Flamels did. Surely they'd earned a mentioning in a history class when they'd lived through so much of it? Malfoy absentmindedly stroked the back cover's edge, "Perenelle studied Astronomy before drinking the Elixir of Life, but after watching waves of bubonic plague and various illnesses wipe out swathes of the peasants, she funded hospitals that were free for the poor. She became a trained mediwitch, then a Healer, and eventually a Training Healer to teach at her hospitals, and she was most proud of implementing the Perenelle Procedure in the 19th century, in which mediwixen and Healers had to wash their hands and use disinfecting spells in between patients. She was 684 when she passed."

"Did Professor Binns ever talk about them?", Harry pulled his glasses off and set them on the sleek metal shelving unit on his side of the bed before turning back towards Malfoy, whose face was hard to make out but voice sounded amused in an unfunny way, "It wouldn't be nice and respectable to talk about how slavery played a role in the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. Ethelry, as it's commonly called in Europe, has survived into the modern age by shifting in the direction of voluntary and consensual service, but it's still a considerable portion of the black market, the sex trade. Tydrik's journals, letters, and items donated to universities are invaluable for historical study, particularly Ethelry Studies, but you can't really talk about the Flamels without talking about their slave, who was an important assistant and scribe for their respective work."

"When did he die?", Harry couldn't explain why he wanted it to be around the same time as Nicolas and Perenelle, but the somewhat foolish thought that they'd entered into immortality together and deserved to go out together was hard to shake. Malfoy held up the book, "In June of 1993 at the age of 671 shortly after the first part of his autobiographical memoir was published. _Elixir of Service_ covers roughly one century per book and the releases were staggered from 1993 through '98. By the end of his life, Tydrik Ruotsalainen De Flamel knew Swedish, Finnish, French, Latin, and English, but it definitely wasn't easy for him to get to that point. He lived through the transitions from Old French to Middle French to Modern French, for starters."

"Which century is that?", Malfoy shot him a sidelong glance that would've made Hermione proud, and Harry sighed before clarifying, "Book. Which book are you reading?"

"First one", Malfoy's fingers curled around the top corners of the covers, " _Elixir of Service_ is more well-known and particularly well-received among those who still live Ethelry. There was a special discount for the full set timed with your auction."

Harry squinted at the pages he knew were in Romanian even if he currently couldn't make out the text and thought back to Malfoy's easy handling of the Hungarian librettos, "How many languages do you know?"

"French, Romanian, and a quite a bit of Italian", Malfoy shrugged, "Between hereditary magic and international Ethelry, most Pureblood families are at least bilingual to some degree or know which Translation Spell to cast. Lifelong hetaerae, a despoina or despotes, will most strongly affect their Owner in needing to learn a new language. Mother’s despoina, Eili, lost a fair bit of her hearing last summer, so they’ve been learning some BSL since then. All of our slaves are semifluit, so they can cast _Translatio Lingua Signans_ to show signs or _Ysgrifennu llafar_ to show the spoken word in writing. It’s like - erm - like subtitles in Muggle films?"

Harry nodded in understanding. After the Final Battle, a mediwitch had used a spell like that to keep from startling the jumpy wizards and witches waiting outside the Hospital Wing to be checked over for spell damage or residual spell effects. He wasn’t terribly surprised by the robust answer because he had vague memories of Sirius saying something inappropriate in French at the dinner table over winter break in his fifth year and the visiting students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang talking in their native tongues with several Purebloods at the Yule Ball. Ron had stammered out a hello and promptly forgotten every word and phrase he tried to cram the night before, so Harry was more preoccupied with saving him from trying to drown himself in the punch bowl afterwards. In contrast, he barely knew a handful of words and phrases in Romanian and felt inadequately matched, “Will I have to learn all of that?”

“No”, Malfoy gestured in between them, “We obviously have a common language already. Most slaves pass through Romanian training schools and auctions at some point, so Romanian is rather common in public spaces and for basic commands. Granted, they also frequently pass through other European markets and auctions, but many only pick up the words and phrases they need in French, Italian, German, etc.”

“What about your mum’s dez-perm - hetaera? I can’t cast a spell to talk to her.”

“I’m not going to force learning a language on you”, Malfoy looked down at the open pages of _Elixir of Service_ , fidgeting with the bookmark nervously, “Contractually, I’m the only one who must accommodate language differences with you, but I’m sure Eili would appreciate a few basic signs like hello and thank you”, whatever was messing with his nerves vanished, “I should warn you that she’s still quite capable of writing something down if she wants to talk to you, and any changes in her hearing do not mean that Eili can’t or won’t send a Howler to get her point across.”

Harry had the distinct impression there was at least one story behind that warning, but he wasn’t sure now was the time to ask why Malfoy had received a Howler from his mum’s hetaera. It could either be humorous (perhaps writing on Narcissa’s behalf to scold him?) or serious, given that the Malfoy Manor was used by Voldemort during the war (and Narcissa may not have reacted well to her husband’s sort of death). He pushed away the downward tugging thoughts because he didn’t have the time or energy to consider that pessimistic train of thought right now, “Matei didn't teach me any of the Romanian I know, which I’ve already told you isn’t a lot. I don't think he wanted to put that much effort into it."

Malfoy frowned but didn't comment about another gap in Harry's training or the apparent inadequacies of Matei’s ability to train. With his talk of lifelong hetaerae and traditions, Harry was reasonably sure Malfoy would come across archaic compared to Matei, but he couldn’t immediately come up with a downside to the old-fashioned model if it was why Malfoy was so concerned with making sure Harry was okay. It reminded him of how he had painstakingly polished and taken care of his Nimbus 2000 and Firebolt to make sure they were in top flying condition, and the comparison to being a cherished possession was doing something funny (but not unpleasant) to his insides. Malfoy flicked a switch on the handset and the holo-pitch shimmered into thin air before he dimmed the lights. Harry turned away from the reading light and felt a hand affectionately run through his hair, "Noapte bună."

"Noapte bună", Harry mumbled into the blankets pulled up around him. A twanging ache reminded him that Matei hadn't even been the one to teach Harry how to say goodnight, but he pushed the thought away. Did it matter which Trainer taught a language? Harry felt a little more settled into his skin, a little more human after talking, and that was enough for now. He curled into the blankets and tried to let his thoughts fade into the background, so he wouldn't keep himself awake too far into the night. Harry slipped into a comfortable sleep remembering filled mushrooms during intermission, gentle pressure along his skin calling him back home, and softness - the burgundy opera house blanket, the hotel towel, the sweats that had become his sleeping clothes, the relaxing embrace of the large mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian that appears in Chapter 3:  
> [Useful Romanian phrases](https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/romanian.php)  
> Ce mai faceți? = How are you?  
> Noapte bună = Goodnight  
> …  
> Dictionary / Google Translate  
> Îmi pare rău, D/domnule. = I'm sorry, S/sir. Depending on context, Domnule may be used to mean Mister / Mr.  
> Călăul = The Punisher  
> . . .  
> Hungarian:  
> kvibli = Squib [(source)](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_wizarding_terms_in_translations_of_Harry_Potter).  
> A kvibli átka = The Curse of the Squib  
> A véres grófnő = The Bloody Countess  
> . . .  
> Welsh  
> Ysgrifennu llafar = “Spoken writing”, used as a real time dialogue captioning or subtitling spell.


	4. The Dragon’s Tail (Aug 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important update to Ch 3 (and relevant to this chapter as well):  
> Added to Tags: Kink Negotiation  
> Preliminary safeword system uses a slightly modified "traffic light" system (green / yellow / red).
> 
> Added to Tags: Impact Play, Spanking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being upfront, I have no irl experience with impact play, so there may be some fudging with the spanking scene (my childhood experiences of being spanked doesn't translate to a scene of this nature). While I am aware of what Caregiver/little is _not_ , I wanted to try writing a pov where the incestuous Pureblood associations have made this unpalatable for Draco. I must admit that some of the caretaking elements (and referring to a stuffed animal as a 'stuffie') will seem familiar for those who've peeked into Cg/l, at least in some tumblr spaces.
> 
> There's a spot where I wanted to indicate overlapping dialogue, and afaik, the slashes do so ["dialogue //" "// dialogue"].

Harry fiddled with the hem of today's t-shirt, one of the dark gray shirts from Dudley's largest point before discovering boxing that hung down to just above his knees, and readjusted on the bench. The faux leather cushioning kept reminding him that Malfoy hadn't set out pants with this morning's jeans - no, if he were being honest with himself, his nerves were making him more aware of how he was seated. Despite last night's assurances that Malfoy did not do public punishments, Harry still felt a bit wary of what exactly qualified as public space. It made sense that he'd been able to eat breakfast, a full English spread from the long buffet counter, because there were non-Ethelry associated wizards and witches in business robes who might've asked questions. They were going to be in the sleek and more modernly designed carriage from last night's business oriented hotel for several hours, though, and this was as private as things got outside of the locked rooms at the inns. Harry crossed and uncrossed his ankles, unsure if it was worth trying to lay out across the bench when he had a better view of what Malfoy was doing sitting up. Not that he was doing much other than balancing _Elixir of Service_ on his charcoal slacks and reading, but still. After a few pages, he glanced up and took in Harry's careful posture, sitting up straight and hands resting on his thighs, at odds with the past few days of stretching out, "Something wrong?"

"No, Sir", Harry carefully redirected his gaze down away from Malfoy's face, but he took the deflection as a glance to the book, "Would you like something to read? I have more than librettos."

The offer was tempting, but Harry wasn't sure he could get the muscles in his back to relax enough to focus right now. Was Malfoy a fan of making his slaves wait? Because if he didn't like mind games, he was pulling one off rather well right now. Harry shook his head and forced his hands to hold still, to not fidget and tap away the anticipation. Malfoy slid the cream ribbon attached to the binding in between the open pages and slid the closed book off to his left, "You're", he paused and made a circling gesture to encompass all of Harry, "Something's off. Did someone say something at breakfast?"

"We're not in public", Harry choose his words carefully because he didn't want Malfoy getting the impression he knew better about disciplinary measures than his Owner, and at Malfoy's confused silence, he gently prompted, "You don't punish your slaves in public."

Harry wasn’t entirely sure what emotion passed over Malfoy's face before it settled on stern, "I'm not going to punish an emotional reaction, Harry. You may be my legal property under the contract, but you're not an inanimate object. Emotional responses are to be expected when dealing with other humans."

Harry's fingers were twisting into the t-shirt's hem, and he couldn't shake the feeling of getting away with something. On the one hand, he could appreciate the leeway given to being so angry he ran away and stepping away from his body last night, but on the other hand, those were implicit and unspoken rules about how a well-trained slave should behave that he'd somewhat bent. So, maybe a first time slide could make sense there, but Harry had also admitted to disobeying a direct order to remain seated in the balcony. If he'd have done that and waited for Malfoy to return to their seats, he wouldn't have seen the side room and worked himself into stepping away in the first place. He glanced up through his fringe and kept his tone quietly deferential, "I never would've seen the side room if I'd have followed your order to remain seated."

"A minor infraction, all things considered", Malfoy leaned back into his bench and observed Harry, though he wasn't sure exactly what Malfoy was focusing on. After a moment, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair in thought, "Well, it is minor, so I'm not pulling out all the stops, yeah? At home, I'd consider this something we would discuss rather than pulling out all of the whips and chains, but you clearly need something to happen."

Harry felt something uncoil and incrementally relax at the admission, but he wound up frowning at Malfoy's expectant gesture to speak, "I'm not choosing my own punishment."

He winced at how affronted his statement sounded in hindsight, but there was no taking the feeling back. Slaves didn't discipline themselves, period. They could ask for a scene with a punishment without having broken a rule, but actual disciplinary consequences were decided by the Trainers and their eventual Owners. Malfoy nodded in agreement, "I don't want you feeling like you're getting away scot-free or short-changed, but you're also a new slave. I don't know your limits yet, so I'm going to need a little collaboration."

Harry's cheeks warmed, and he hoped he wasn't blushing to the extent it felt like. Malfoy did have a valid point. He'd seen some slaves crumple at the warm up lashing others could take, so their respective punishments had to be proportionate. He nodded silently, and Malfoy worked through his thoughts out loud, "I prefer to have more clearance for whips and canes, so those won't work now. If talking things through isn't enough, a written assignment probably wouldn't go over particularly well in this case. How do you feel about spanking?"

"Er", Harry blinked and unconsciously shifted on his bench, "Most men wanted to use a paddle to get the bruising done in less time."

"Hmm", Malfoy readjusted his turned up sleeves to take them up to his elbows and patted his thighs, "Jeans off then."

Harry stood and quickly stepped out of his jeans, folding and laying them on his bench, before walking to Malfoy's bench where he was still cross-legged. Malfoy waved his wand in a spiraling downward cone and Harry felt a warm band of magic circle the base of his prick. He paused, kneeling next to Malfoy's thigh to his right, and eyed the wand being tucked into a breast pocket. Malfoy spoke conversationally, "It's better to take extra precautions while you're on the antibiotic because some of its side effects can cause the wrong sort of pain. Can you count?"

"Erm", Harry felt like it was a trick question, but he didn't want to come across flippant while Malfoy guided him forward to lean across his lap and slipped his glasses off to sit on top of _Elixir of Service_ , "Matei wanted me to be as silent as possible, and unintentional noise got extra lashings", he paused and considered the possibility of language, "On the handful of times he wanted me to count, it was in English."

"Oh, that won't do", Malfoy's voice had lowered into a quiet, deep rumble as he lifted the back of the overly long t-shirt to expose Harry's bare arse with his left hand and appreciatively run his right over one cheek then the other, "You're going to listen to what I say, and when you can successfully count to ten, we'll stop. Agreed?"

"Yes, Sir", Harry took a deep breath and willed himself to relax because the pain of impact dug in deeper into clenched muscles. Malfoy's right hand landed on his left cheek with more noise than sting, "Unu."

"Unu", Harry squirmed as the second landed quickly on his right cheek, "Doi."

"Doi", the third didn't land on the left in an alternating pattern and stung as more force went into the swing, "Trei."

He carefully mimicked the rolling 'r', and the fourth landed across both cheeks, "Patru."

"Patru", Harry's voice had dropped into a whisper, and he readjusted the stance of his hands on the bench, uncomfortably aware of the hot sting of the fifth smack, almost stuttering his echo of, "Cinci."

Malfoy gently circled one cheek and then the other with his palm, "We'll start over if you mispronounce a number", before the sixth landed on his left cheek, "Șase."

Harry whimpered as his tongue slipped, "Shah-shay", and the count restarted with rapid but not the hardest blows on his right cheek. Unu, doi, trei, patru, cinci, shah-say. He rocked forward and shifted his hands again. Malfoy hadn't fallen into a rhythm, and he had to repeat what he'd heard (who knew listening took so much energy?), and he couldn't step away from his body to block out the pain. His arse was on fire, "Șapte", and he wasn't entirely sure when the tears had started to fall because his eyes had been shut for a while, "Opt."

Malfoy's hand rang out on his left cheek, "Nouă", and he hoped that the hiccupped, "Zece", didn't count against him. He'd crossed his arms across Malfoy's left thigh and knee so he could take his weight off his protesting hands and wrists, and he wasn't sure he could start over. God, he hadn't been stuck inside his skin during a punishment for weeks, maybe months. Malfoy hadn't even added in a Stinging Jinx or used a paddle, and it fucking hurt. Harry whined as something cool against his heated skin was rubbed in small circles and slowly warmed. The radiating discomfort and soreness didn't abate, which ruled out a numbing agent, and the consistency didn't feel right for lubricating jelly, so he was reasonably sure the salve prevented bruising. He concentrated on inhaling and exhaling evenly while Malfoy ran his hands up and down Harry's back, gentle and warm through the t-shirt. His voice was liquid warmth seeping into cracks and soothing away the fear of not doing well enough, "It's okay, Harry. Treabă bună. You did such a good job. Treabă foarte bună. It's alright."

Harry had to wait for his insides to solidify from the melted feeling dripping in and out of his ribs before he could trust his muscles to sit up. He wiped away the damp tear tracks from his cheeks and around his eyes and carefully balanced his sore arse on the edges of his heels (sitting in any position wouldn't be the most enjoyable experience for the next few hours, but this was the least irritating until he could stretch out on his bench). He couldn't tell if it was because he didn't have glasses on, but Malfoy looked softer around the edges, warmer with that small satisfied smile. Harry sniffed and looked away, an unexpected tendril of embarrassment wending its way through the aftermath of the scene. The rumble of pride and satisfaction were edging out of his deep voice, "Harry? Did you step away?"

"No", Harry's voice sounded hoarse, which surprised him since there hadn't been any yelling or screaming on either of their parts. He swiped at his eyes again, his thoughts tripping over themselves in the rush to explain, "No rhythm -- Had to listen - and talk -- Stuck inside."

Malfoy carefully rested his hand in between Harry's shoulder blades, "Do you remember the color system from last night?"

Harry nodded and shifted on his knees, which felt sore and weren't thrilled at bearing his direct weight after the spanking, "More blue than yellow, I guess?"

"Have you had an unpleasant experience with spanking in your past?", Malfoy spoke softly like Harry was an easily spooked animal, and he shook his head, "It's been a while since I couldn't step away from the pain. Feels more than I remember."

"Do you dissociate that often?", Malfoy sounded confused, and Harry could only shrug. He faced the possibility of being shared every day during the allotted time for group excursions in the early evening, and there wasn't very much forewarning as to what he might be facing that day. Malfoy's fingers worked small circles into the t-shirt and his back, "Is it a soft limit?"

Harry looked away from those concerned slate gray eyes and squinted towards the book with his glasses perched on the cover. Those fingers dug in briefly before resuming their soothing loop, and Malfoy sighed, "A soft limit places some restrictions on play. You only engage in it with someone you trust or within a certain scenario. It's what's in between the activities you know you want and the activities you absolutely will not take part in, your hard limits."

"I", Harry paused and licked his lips, changing his mind part way through the thought, an anxious feeling warning him that he couldn't get out of telling the truth, "Matei liked chastity and orgasm control and denial. He liked topping, and he liked it rough after sharing me with someone. He leaned more towards mental training while other trainers would introduce groups of us to different toys and prepare us for what we might encounter on group trips. Those men would talk to Matei to arrange a scene."

"So, you don't know your limits", Malfoy's tone lilted the statement up into a question, and Harry shifted his shoulders in a partial shrug. His hands drifted from resting on his thighs to resting on the bench next to his legs, taking some of his weight off his knees, "Most didn't use translation spells, and I'm not sure how many knew English. If they did, they didn't act like it."

"What did you do when one of these men crossed a limit?", Malfoy's voice sounded odd like he knew the answer already and was afraid of hearing it confirmed. Harry blinked down at the blurry charcoal trousers, and his throat felt scratchy and dry like it didn't want to let the words out, "Stepped away."

"Harry", Malfoy's left hand lifted his chin, and he couldn't look away from dark storm clouds and sadness, "What did you do when you wanted a scene to stop? Or you didn't want touched in any way?", so he closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the lightning and anger of the storm breaking. Harry shivered as the comforting hand on his back stilled and the other slid around to cradle the back of his head, and he didn't fight the guiding pull that led to his forehead resting along Malfoy's collarbone. Malfoy had wrapped his arms around him, and he knew the silence was overflowing with the words he couldn't say: _I was ignored so often I stopped saying no. There were no colors, no safewords, no check ins. Feeling so uncomfortable in my skin that I dissociated during sex became normal. It didn't matter if I wanted to fuck them, they wanted to fuck me so they did_.

~

"Harry?", the soft question wormed into the forefront of Harry's attention, and he opened his eyes to a plate with two sandwiches on an outstretched hand. While it was nice that the basket carrying their lunches had respective Warming and Cooling Charms, he was used to being able to smell food being cooked as a warning of an upcoming meal. Harry readjusted his glasses and sat up to accept the plate, peeling the wheat bread back enough to see slices of salami and tomato topped with a white melted cheese and a layer of something spread across the top piece of bread. He nibbled at a corner until the garlic and mayonnaise registered, and he dug in more confidently to the eggplant salad sandwich. Malfoy flicked his wand to direct a floating coaster with a glass of water over to Harry's bench before speaking, "We should talk about this morning."

"Hm-mm", Harry could feel parts of him tense in anticipation and relax at no longer needing to wait for the inevitable. Malfoy took smaller bites and seemed to be eating slower to compensate for his nerves rather than Harry's approach to get the meal over with as fast as possible, "I know this might be hard for you to accept, but I don't want to intentionally cause you to dissociate", he sighed at Harry's suspicious squint, "I can't make any promises that it won't happen, but I can guarantee watching you step away from your body is not pleasant, so I'd like to avoid it. I'm not sure if your eyes unfocus because you can't make direct eye contact, and you rock or sway without being aware of it, and I don't know how someone else could see you so obviously checked out and still think a scene should happen."

"I get your point, Malfoy, but -- ", he cut himself off at the stern glance Malfoy sent his way, and his eyes flickered down the light blue button up before Harry could force himself to maintain eye contact. The blonde's gaze softened and he rolled his shoulders, "Unless the situation warrants an alias, you will refer to me as Draco."

On the one hand, Harry couldn't blame the other wizard, who had just a few hours earlier spanked him and surely had future plans with more physically involved activities, but on the other hand, he wasn't entirely sure he could break a seven year habit overnight. He settled for a nod of acknowledgement and hoped he could readjust his mental filter without too many slip ups. Malfoy nodded in return and motioned for Harry to continue speaking, "Right, what I said this morning still stands. I mostly have experience with what Matei liked, and I didn't really have much of a choice on what clients showed up on any given night."

"Then we'll be on the lookout for any limits you discover during your service", Malfoy sounded so sure of his answer that Harry almost felt confident in the goal for him to not step away from his body. Almost. He still remembered the surety of routine in the opera house last night and the thwarted attempt to step away from the pain this morning, though. They had established a way of helping him back into his skin, so it wasn't like stepping away from his body couldn't be dealt with. It was more that he shouldn't do it often or step too far away, which sounded an awful lot like checking in, "That's what the colors are for, right?"

"Yes and sort of", Malfoy took a sip of his water, "Any of the systems for checking in can help you to deal with discomfort or needing a change in a scene, but just because you used a red on something, doesn't mean it's an automatic limit. Every pixie is a fairy, but not every fairy is a pixie, in a manner of speaking."

Harry blinked at the turn of phrase and took a bite of his second sandwich with sunflower oil and onion eggplant salad this time, "Sprites and all that, yeah. So, what happens if I find a limit?"

"Say the applicable color and we'll stop what we're doing to talk", Harry frowned at Malfoy's answer. That sounded well and good right now, but they weren't in a scene. It was easy to recall memories and make snap judgements when Harry was definitely in his body, but last night had been like trying to think through treacle pudding. Even if he'd known a system for checking in, he's not sure he would've been able to get to the appropriate color in time; not to mention how soon he stepped away before Malfoy had tried to check in. Harry pulled his floating coaster closer towards his plate and tried to sound suggestive instead of bossy, "This morning it was easier to come up with a color because I hadn't stepped away, but it's like my thoughts slow down a bit after I step away from my body too far. I can't say with certainty that the colors wouldn't work, but I might need prompting."

"Okay", Malfoy slowly spun his coaster while thinking, "Introspection and complicated thought processes are hit and miss when someone dissociates, so I can't say I'm surprised. Prompting fits with a check system, anyways, but you should still have a safeword you can use unprompted. Something easy to remember, and unique enough you won't overuse the word in everyday speech."

"Will you", Harry's eyes flickered away because it was hard to vocalize the concern he'd earned during his training, "If I have one of these safewords, will you follow it?"

"Yes", Malfoy's response came so quickly that he couldn't help but flinch, and Malfoy inhaled deeply before softening his tone and lowering his voice in a carefully reassuring delivery, "There was a fair bit wrong with what I grew up considering normal, but the one not so fucked up thing I learned was consent based Ethelry. I've lived it, and I don't want to take advantage of the non-consent clause in your contract. The difference between torture and a scene is the consent of everyone involved. I may like inflicting pain, but I'm not a torturer, understand?"

Harry thought back to the untested _Crucio_ and watching his distaste with Voldemort trying to teach him how to torture in a vision, and he could remember the concern with his welfare from this morning with every movement that rekindled his sore muscles and red skin. It seemed counterintuitive to trust Malfoy at his word, but then again, it didn't seem to make sense that The Boy Who Lived (Twice) would attend a slave training school in Romania. He nodded and took a sip of his water while setting the empty plate off to the side of his bench. Malfoy tapped the basket with his wand, which called the empty plate to it, and returned to his own sandwich, "I'm not the one to determine just how much of your training was damaging, but there were parts that have clearly left a mark. I went looking for a hetaera because I'm not opposed to sexual service, but I'm not professionally equipped for the recovery you're going to need during your contract."

"Recovery?", Harry frowned more in confusion than irritation or anger. He wasn't going to lie and say everything was a-okay after his training because he was still taking the antibiotic for the improper catheterization, and well, the niggling thought that stepping away from his body probably shouldn't have been his most used element of training was more than likely a sign that things could've gone differently. But recovery? That brought to mind addictions and compulsions, Muggle 12 step programs, and illegal substances. Malfoy gestured vaguely with his sandwich, "Your boundaries have been ignored and buried by your training, and part of discovering your limits will include finding the ability to say no to something you want to stop. You’ll have to recover your voice, metaphorically speaking."

Harry's heart was doing something uncomfortable and loud, but he couldn't spare his full attention to figuring out its problem. He was being encouraged to stop what they might do? He could refuse a certain type of play or scene? It went against almost everything Matei had taught him about being sexually available, and underneath the considerable amount of surprise and discomfort, Harry thought there might be relief. Seeds of fear and uncertainty that 'doing whatever pleases' his Owner would be a lot harder than in training sprouted, and an uneasy feeling that he may not be able to please Malfoy couldn't be beaten down to the subconscious to be ignored. Except he could remember the hand feeding and the proud reassurances that he'd done a good job in Romanian this morning, and Harry was experiencing too many emotions to feed the anxiety. He prodded the coaster into a lazy rotation, "You said you're not professionally equipped for this?"

Malfoy set his own empty plate in the basket, "I can orchestrate a non-sexual or sexual scene, but that's not the same thing as having the therapy training a Mind Healer does. I don't pretend to know exactly what you experienced with Matei or any of the clients, and it's understandable if you're not sure you can talk about that with me since I'm your Owner. You don't have to make a decision this instant, but I'll look into options for when we get back to the Manor."

~

Harry wasn’t sure what he was expecting from a hotel called The Garden of Pleasure, but he was fairly certain each room having a different floral theme wasn’t quite it. Not that there was anything wrong with flowers, but, well - _Snapdragons, really?_ Harry settled Malfoy’s traveling trunk against the wall closest to the bathroom while he placed Harry’s against the wall with a stained glass window. Maybe the pastel snapdragons were nice there, but Harry had never seen so many colors of the plant squeezed together until he looked at the quilt on the bed. Malfoy rearranged all of the vases with the room’s namesake onto the small writing desk, half talking to himself, “At least they’re not as overpowering as roses. Can’t just put a painting on the wall, they had to put the equivalent of a small garden in every room.”

“Mal --”, Harry could practically taste the fear that jolted through his body at the too late memory of the order to call Malfoy by his first name, and without intending to, he wound up half shouting the correction, “Draco!”

Unsurprisingly, Malfoy wasn’t expecting to be shouted at. Harry could hear the sound of breaking glass, but with all the snapdragons and an annoyed wizard now wearing half a vase worth of water, he couldn’t see the results of Malfoy startling. He also had to admit that he wasn’t looking directly at Malfoy anymore because he’d bent this morning’s order (far enough it was all but broken) and directly led to this whole scene unfolding. The embarrassment and fear had prompted an instinctive withdrawal response and an attempt to make himself smaller by squeezing in between Malfoy’s trunk and the corner. Malfoy himself didn’t notice until he’d finished waving his wand to put the vase and his clothes right and started to turn, “Bloody hell, do you always shout -- Harry?”

“Îmi pare rău, Domnule”, Harry whispered. He drew his knees closer to his body and kept his eyes on the floor with a small amount of hope that Malfoy’s anger wouldn’t flare out in a physical manner. He’d forgotten the instinctive shrinking and curling of trying to avoid Vernon’s anger because he’d grown accustomed to heading off his uncle, and then he’d gotten his Hogwarts letter and it was so much easier to square his shoulders and talk back when he always had the magic card up his sleeve. But signing the afluit contract and dealing with men who were begging for an excuse to hit and vent had dredged up skeletons Harry had thought were buried and hidden safely away. Now, he hated how small he felt and the shame burning in his stomach at how childish he was being. _It’s no wonder Matei didn’t --_

Something was in his hair. Harry blinked and realized his view was different, looking at the front of Malfoy’s traveling trunk with its odd system of large and small keyholes. He shifted and the too-warm-to-be-the-wall shifted as well. He could usually remember stepping away from his body in better detail, so Harry could only assume he’d stepped away in the wrong order this time. Instead of leaving the body to shore up mental reserves and still having some idea of what the body was doing, he’d retreated into a part of his mind and wound up bailing on the body. It was hard to think about it while that something gently ran through his hair and blunt nails worked their way along his scalp. Harry blinked and angled his head towards the warmth. Malfoy’s hand stilled and he spoke quietly, “Starting to come back?”

Harry nodded, not wanting to speak and sound like he’d been crying. He hated stepping away in the wrong order and was glad it hadn’t been a common occurrence during training. Malfoy’s arms settled around him, and he was too tired to fight against the shifting for both of them to be directly in front of the traveling trunk. He wasn’t sure how the trunks knew when to return to being trunks after being the easier to carry suitcases, but he supposed it was some sort of magic command he hadn’t been paying attention to the past few days. Malfoy gently covered his hand with his own and guided Harry’s index finger to one of the largest keyholes, tracing clockwise around the metal edge. The trunk’s lid clicked open, and when Malfoy pushed it far enough back to sit on its hinges, Harry could see the top of a collection of folded shirts and trousers. His finger was guided to the small keyhole directly underneath and tracing it led to dress robes and ties. The next keyhole revealed a menagerie of Falmouth Falcons pajamas, but Malfoy released his hand to dig around underneath the different shades of blue and mutter an explanation, “Small keyholes are for subcompartments of the larger ones. You can access them individually and tracing anticlockwise on the compartment’s keyhole will shut and lock the whole section. Wands are only necessary to calibrate settings, so you shouldn’t get locked out while afluit.”

“Okay”, a small part of Harry was relieved that he wouldn’t have to ask for help just to grab something from one of the traveling trunks, but a larger part of him was curious and paying attention to what Malfoy was looking for. He’d seen the other wizard’s pajamas just last night, so he really couldn’t imagine a surprise coming from this subcompartment. Harry could feel Malfoy’s body tense when he found whatever he was looking for, and sprawled in the man’s lap, Harry couldn’t really not notice Malfoy nibble his bottom lip in thought before speaking, though he was certain it just their height differences that made it easy to focus on his lips, “When I was little, I had a stuffie - erm, stuffed animal - instead of a blanket. Mother spent a fair bit of time getting the herbal blend just so; lavender to relax and calm down, chamomile to help fall asleep, and so on. He”, Malfoy paused and changed direction, “You can build up tolerances and develop dependencies on various relaxation and sleep aid potions. After I was released from Azkaban, I was on the cusp of becoming physically addicted to Dreamless Sleep Potion, so I drug him out of storage.”

“Him”, Harry echoed. Dark gray eyes flitted down to the trunk and back, and really, he would need to reconsider being this close to Malfoy while talking. There looked to be a ring of blue just next to his pupils, and it was horribly distracting to just realize this detail right now. He blinked at movement in his peripheral and turned to see this mysterious stuffed animal rise out of the trunk. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep an inappropriate laugh from bursting out, and he hoped most of the smile was hidden. A blue-gray dragon with a silver underbelly was being set on his knees. The main body was about the size he thought the typical teddy bear might be, but the tail did add a little extra length and the wings a little more width. _Of course he would have a dragon_ , Harry carefully picked it up to get a closer look. It had a slightly faded look around the seams, and he was fairly certain the disjointed dark blue and silver stitching reinforcing the seams wasn’t intentional. Somehow it had two different blue buttons as eyes, different shades no less, and the hint of green under the chin might have been a permanent grass stain. There were no lethal blue spikes along the tail, and the snout was a bit shorter than Harry thought it should be, so this Swedish Short-Snout really was a him, as far as a children’s toy went.

“His name is Elty”, Malfoy mumbled, cleared his throat, and tried to speak a little louder, “Short for Eltanin, also known as Gamma Draconis, the brightest star in Draco. I know it seems a bit childish, but the herbal blend isn’t addictive and really does help with the nightmares”, he cut himself off at the admission. Harry gave an experimental squeeze and sniff. He didn’t really know his herbs unless they were used in cooking, but he did recognize the lavender Malfoy had mentioned and that vague tea smell might have been the chamomile. Elty smelled nice, and the calming was more of a gentle suggestion than the juggernaut of forced sedation from a Calming Draught. He reckoned it wouldn’t be strong or fast acting enough for the worst intensity of a panic attack, but there was something about the subtlety of the magic that did feel safe for long-term use. Harry couldn’t remember having a stuffed animal when he was little - just a blanket he was fond of until Dudley had tore it up to make a kite one summer - so hugging Elty didn’t seem quite as embarrassing for him. It was certainly better than feeling a bit pathetic at wanting to hug a spare pillow at least.

“I won’t have to”, Harry struggled with how to explain the odd infantilizing roleplay some clients liked, “I won’t have to be”, and he held up the Swedish Short-Snout emphatically. Malfoy leaned back slightly to prevent getting smacked in the face by a wing or the tail, but he looked too confused to respond. Harry sighed internally. It was confusing to be given children’s toys and specific clothes to wear while being cuddled because it was quite nice to be held without getting fucked until the times these men did want to fuck him. Then they were Tată or Daddy, and they were rutting against his adult-sized children’s clothes or slipping their hands down his pants to ‘take care of their little boy’. He didn’t have much experience with stuffed animals outside of these scenes, but everything sounded jumbled without context. Was this a limit? Harry frowned at Elty’s mismatched button eyes, “Do I have to call you Tată?”

Malfoy froze, and Harry side eyed the shocked expression that was struggling to not morph into a disgusted half-snarl. After a few deep breaths, Malfoy finally had a more neutral facial expression and carefully flat tone, “I’ve dealt with enough taunts about incestuous Purebloods to last me a lifetime. Objectively, I know Caregiver/little roleplay isn’t the same thing has pedophila and some of it is therapeutic in non-sexual scenes, but I”, his upper lip twitched, “You will not call me Daddy while we’re doing anything sexual, understand?”

“Da, Domnule”, Harry stared down at the little patch of dark blue material sewn on the underneath of a wing in stark contrast to the muted blue-gray of its surroundings. He stroked the curve of the wing and used the soft, inquisitive inflection that Matei had preferred for questions to not sound like back talk, “It’s a limit of yours then?”

“Yes”, Malfoy gently ran his hand up and down Harry’s left arm, and Harry kept the impulse to offer Elty to him to help calm down to himself, “I understand that sometimes things slip out in the heat of the moment, as it were, but trying to draw a connection between raising children or parenthood and a sexual situation just turns everything off for me. I have zero interest in waste play and diapers. If you get a boo-boo, my first reaction is to get the first aid kit, not to fuck it better, and I am not doing hands on sex ed, not like that.”

“Mulțumesc”, Harry ran his fingers over the reinforced seams, tracing the stitches in a self-soothing pattern, relieved but unsure of how to explain it to Malfoy, “They didn’t hurt me, or anything, so I don’t think it’s a limit, but a lot of the men were old enough to literally be my father, so it was confusing, and I”, he paused to breathe and try to summarize his jumbled thoughts, “I don’t mind that it’s a limit for you.”

“Well, I guess that’s some progress then”, Malfoy shifted his right leg, rolling his ankle with a small frown at the offending limb, “You dissociated for quite a bit there. Dinner’s probably ready.”

~

Dinner was ready and waiting under Preservation Charms in a dining room with living vines curled around the table legs and dozens of vases of little bouquets of flowers that Harry guessed correlated to their rooms (if the snapdragons were anything to go by). Apparently, the hotel was fond of cherry wood and the lighter shades of green in their common areas, and they were not fond of Concealing Charms. Well, those embedded in Harry’s piercings were fine, but the wizard in emerald green robes was quite alarmed by Malfoy’s charmed appearance because the spellwork was setting off some sort of ward. Harry could feel something shift in the way Malfoy held himself as the night manager peeled away a large bandage on his left forearm to reveal the black skull and intertwined serpent of Voldemort’s Dark Mark, which gave off pulsating neon blue waves until the wizard had traced several runes and muttered who knows how many spells over the brand.

Malfoy had pocketed the bandage and taken a seat at the table without saying a word, but Harry could feel a tense iciness in the air that wasn’t helped by the two witches at one end of the table. They were around Malfoy and Harry’s age, and based on the thick collar around the neck of the one with her short skirt hiked up and grinding in the lap of the other, they were another Owner and slave staying in the hotel. Clearly, something had gone sideways with their privacy wards because neither seemed to hear anything outside of the bubble around their chair, but, thankfully, the noises they were making were also confined to their bubble. Harry’s stomach clenched at the vicious way the slave was fucking herself on her Mistress’ toy, and in hindsight, he could only guess that one too many furtive glances between the silent tableaux and Malfoy had set his Owner off.

“What are you staring at?”

“Nothing. I just -- Do you want me to…?”

“Really? At the table, here, where everyone can see?”

“I mean, isn’t it going to happen, erm, eventually?”

“Because I’m obviously the type who likes to fuck in public, hmm?”

“I - I don’t know.”

“Obviously, I’m going to fuck you rough //”

“// I didn’t say //”

“// like Matei.”

“You’re not like him. I’m still a bit surprised, but --”

“‘Cause you don’t expect people like me to know how to show common courtesy to someone else? What could the Death Eater possibly know about consent? Once a snake, always a snake?”

Harry still didn’t know if there was anything he could’ve said that would’ve been right, or at least calmed Malfoy down. His silence probably hadn’t helped, but he’s certain Malfoy would’ve still shredded the botched privacy wards on the way out regardless of his ability to find the magical combination of words to diffuse the tension. He shifted on the bed and glanced at the door, the back of which was covered in a shifting pink, peach, and yellow wave of snapdragons. Malfoy had dug around in his trunk for a pack of herbal cigarettes, swore in more than language when a ward went off because of the blue, lemon scented smoke, and stomped out over an hour ago. Harry had carefully dug out his Laundering bag and switched into his sleepwear, remaining shirtless because he fully expected Malfoy to storm back into their room and do something. Pick up a cane, riding crop, cat o’ nine tails, the toy trunk could have many whips and floggers to choose from to channel that anger.

However, it seemed like the blond was going to take a very long smoke break. Harry still didn’t know the exact name of the French cigarettes, but they had been common at University because the nicotineless herbal mix was a safe long-term calming agent and non-addictive unlike Calming Draught or ‘mugs’, as nicotine filled Muggle cigs were called. Harry only made it another half hour before he was digging in Malfoy’s trunk for a Falmouth Falcons t-shirt (because he couldn’t do anything about the room’s Cooling Charms and reaffirming Ownership could often decrease the number of lashes) and then curiously poking around the book subcompartments. Not that he was bored waiting for Malfoy to return, but glancing through a selection of books that would make Hermione’s knees weak was easier to do than ruminate on what had been said.

Other than the incident involving the Snatchers during the horcrux hunt, Harry hadn’t given his former classmate very much thought since the end of their sixth year. There had simply been more pressing matters to focus on with an incredibly active portion of the war going on and all, and then he had wanted to not think about the war once it was all over and everyone else wanted to dredge up the nitty gritty details for the supposed Treason Trials. He’d provided his memories and official statements to the Aurors for blanket testimony and cross-referencing rather than attending each and every trial because he hadn’t cared what happened to the unMarked, to the Snatchers, to the variety of Reformed Ministry supporters. A tendril of guilt wrapped around Harry’s lungs, and if he was honest with himself, he hadn’t particularly cared about what happened to the Marked supporters like Death Eaters either.

He’d ignored The Daily Prophet while he was at Apuseni, and if his life depended on it, he probably couldn’t guess what all sentences the Malfoys had received. Draco had clearly avoided Azkaban and he’d told Harry about Lucius receiving the Dementor’s Kiss, but Harry had never really thought of the Pureblood family as individuals until now. Lucius had deserved what he got in his opinion, Harry had no idea what Narcissa had done until she spoke the crucial lie, and Draco was, well, Draco. Harry could remember the annoying prat from school, but once Voldemort had returned, it drastically restructured his supposed hatred for the Slytherin into a more reasonable annoyance. Could he really lay all of their childhood animosity at Malfoy’s feet? It might help him sleep better to do so, but Harry could also remember the relief at being able to redirect the stress, fear, and anger from needing to fight Voldemort onto someone who was present and easy to lash out at.

Harry frowned at a subcompartment filled with Astronomy books, more than one telescope case (some of the wooden boxes strapped down had names he didn’t recognize but might’ve been different lenses), and drafting supplies. It was starting to feel a touch overwhelming to think about how he had frozen Malfoy somewhere in his last memories of Hogwarts as a school bully, and he quite honestly had no idea what the war did to the boy who was now a man. Did he realize he’d been a prat and try to change? Had he actually been able to change? Did he regret the Dark Mark on his arm? Had he ever actually wanted it? Harry pushed away thoughts of his father as a teen bully because he’d weird himself out with Daddy references down that path. The guilty comparison to Snape, who couldn’t move on from the Marauders' bullying after more than a decade, didn’t exactly ease his conscience. Malfoy hadn’t seen him at his best and most well behaved over the years either, and yet, he hadn’t left Harry to be bought by a stranger who could’ve been an international Death Eater.

Malfoy could’ve spent the last year in Azkaban for all he knew, and Harry was suddenly far more interested in the collection of portfolios filled with star charts. The simple maps from the first few years of Astronomy gained better proportions and details and then gave way to meticulous drafting with neat penmanship and orderly cross hatching. An eighth portfolio contained fully colored drawings and what Harry could only guess was advanced spellwork to create three dimensional maps floating above the drafting. The last section neatly labeled ‘NEWT Astronomy Final Project’ contained a collection of these 3D drafts with a fancy tweaking to the charms for a soft watercolor appearance, and it was only when he’d reached Orion that Harry realized the thread connecting these charts: Leo (Regulus), Boötes (he had no idea who), Orion (Bellatrix, Sirius), Draco (uncle something-or-other, his namesake). Family. He looked at the careful layering of labels that could be isolated with the runes in the legend. Alpha Draconis, Thuban, Adib, the Pole Star from the 4th to the 2nd millenium BCE.

Harry carefully closed and replaced the portfolios in their neat stacks, hoping it wouldn’t look too noticeable that he’d gone snooping in the subcompartment. His stomach did something like a nervous flip-flop, and he shut the lid a little harder than he meant to. No, browsing. He hadn’t been snooping because he wasn’t looking for incriminating evidence. He’d done enough hyperfixating and - _okay, it was a little more unhealthy than observing_ \- stalking during their sixth year. Harry picked up Elty from the nest of pillows he’d been left on before heading off to dinner, and together they sat in the center of the bed. He still wasn’t sure if he’d been expecting his Owner to be like Matei because he thought Matei was going to be his Owner or not. Clearly having his Dark Mark exposed had affected Malfoy, but he still wasn’t sure if he’d assumed Malfoy would probably be a rough exhibitionist interested in showing off his property because he was a Death Eater, his father’s son, or a combination of both. Harry hugged the Swedish Short-Snout a little closer to his chest. First things first, he would wait for Draco to come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian that appears in Chapter 4:  
> Numbers 1 - 10 [(vid)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPwwi6oI7E)  
> 1 = unu | 2 = doi | 3 = trei | 4 = patru | 5 = cinci | 6 = șase | 7 = șapte | 8 = opt | 9 = nouă | 10 = zece  
> …  
> Dictionary / Google Translate  
> Treabă bună = Good job | Treabă foarte bună = Very good job  
> Îmi pare rău, D/domnule. = I'm sorry, S/sir. Depending on context, Domnule may be used to mean Mister / Mr.  
> Tată = Father, Daddy, etc.  
> Mulțumesc = Thank you.


	5. București (Aug 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Added to Tags: Public Sex, Safewording
> 
> The erotic performance venue described in this chapter comes from another fic ([Sherlock the Model](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110669?view_full_work=true) by wendymarlowe), so the inspired by info has been updated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> București is Bucharest, and a nickname "[Little Paris](https://www.pure-romania.com/landmarks/bucharest-the-little-paris/)" inspired the name I gave to the Wizarding portion of [The Grand Hotel Continental](http://romaniatourism.com/hotels/hotel-grand-continental-bucharest.html) (Bijuteria Micul Paris, or The Jewel of Little Paris).
> 
> The herbal cigarettes described here as nicotine-less and non-addictive (separate from Muggle cigarettes) are a crossover from a fic I have yet to post on AO3. I'm currently not tagging it as such, but this writer might have a smoking kink. Maybe. The jury's still out, and so far, it's limited to fic.
> 
> HP Wiki describes hags as having rudimentary magic ([Hag](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hag)) and cites [Babayaga](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Babayaga) as an example of a hag that made it into Muggle myth. Eating children may or may not be a misconception. In this fic, I clearly deviated (adequately outlined in the fic itself, but there's a definite Russian theme with this specific character). Pronya is named after a [river](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronya_River_\(Russia\)) in Russia, and Mikhaylov is mentioned as a town along the Pronya River and the connection to [Russian lacemaking](http://carolgallego.com/russian-lace/). Supposedly, one of the closest comparisons to human flesh is pork ([source](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-flesh-looks-beef-taste-more-elusive-180949562/)), and honestly, there's no significance to the garlic mention other than my fondness for getting the garlic parmesan sauce at Bdubbs. The shawl described was inspired by the [Celestarium](https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/celestarium) that seems to pop up on my dash a lot, though I've made it a bit fancier here.

A deceptively bright and cheery aroma wormed its way into Harry’s brain, or at least the part half paying attention and keeping itself in a light dozing state instead of giving in and sleeping. He cracked an eye and squinted in the direction of the tall white blur, which was putting a dark trunk shaped blur into another one. He slid his glasses on and blinked groggily. Malfoy was finagling their toy trunks into new subcompartments with Harry’s somewhat battered looking former school trunk in the top compartment. Short, precise movements and flicks of his wand, a stiff tenseness about the shoulders, wrinkled slept in clothes, circles under his eyes. He didn’t look like he slept any better than Harry did, and a small petty part of Harry wasn’t terribly upset at that. He pulled his Laundering bag closer from the edge of the bed and shrugged at yesterday’s jeans being the only item left. He was still a bit chilled from dragging himself awake at intervals to keep an eye on the door and wait for his Owner, so he wasn’t voluntarily going without a shirt today. Malfoy twisted something attached to the trunk handle and was standing holding a suitcase by the time Harry had shoved his trainers and Elty into the top of his Laundering bag, keeping it unbuttoned to prevent the charms from activating just yet. Malfoy held open the snapdragon covered door and nodded in the direction of the hall, voice quiet and hoarse, “Grab breakfast you can eat on the go.”

Harry had worked out laying a few sausages across one of the soft biscuits next to a pot of gravy while Malfoy returned their room key and checked out. The witch at the front desk had looked nervous about the bare forearm revealing the black ink of Malfoy’s Dark Mark, and Harry was a bit worried she might set off another stroppy smoke break before they even got to the carriage. He dug around in the basket of tea bags for two Earl Greys and crossed his fingers that not knowing how Malfoy took his tea wouldn’t make things worse. The antibiotic set his teeth on edge, but he wasn’t going to waste any more time with the slow Self-Refilling kettle when Malfoy was already waiting outside The Garden of Pleasure next to a mint green carriage. Harry handed off the leaf decorated mug as he curled up on the bench opposite Malfoy, stepping awkwardly over their combined trunk on the floor. Malfoy drained half the mug in his first swallow, and Harry wasn’t sure if he was frowning in displeasure or shock. The other man sprawled across his vine covered bench with a tired sigh, “Spit it out, then.”

“You left, and you didn’t come back”, Harry glared at the tea mug, “I don’t have a bloody telepathic link with you, y’know? What if you’d’ve gone out and couldn’t return? What if I needed to leave the room? It’s not like I could go looking when it was past midnight, and”, he huffed as Malfoy took another large drink of the strong tea, “And are you even tasting that? There’s an extra bag and not enough milk or sugar to stomach that.”

“Taste buds haven’t woken up yet”, Malfoy rubbed at his eyes and settled the mug on a floating coaster, “A lot of hotels have safety measures about keyholders not being able to leave with a person in their room, so I wasn’t halfway back to London or lying in a gutter somewhere. I went down to the lobby for a smoke and fell asleep down there.”

“All night”, Harry could only guess that he sounded so calm because he was finally getting some of the worry and bone-chilling fear from last night out of his system. He didn’t have a clue what the hotels enforced around safety and keyholders, and while he hadn’t thought Malfoy was heading back to London without any of his trunks, he hadn’t been able to shut down the similarities his brain had dredged up around Matei getting angry and leaving him alone to -- Well, he obviously didn’t quite know the specifics, but Matei always returned smelling of sweat and sex, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out. Harry sidestepped continuing to follow that thought because Malfoy wasn’t Matei (and he only had the gentle lemon scent of those herbal cigs). Malfoy untucked a partially spent cig from behind his ear and twirled it in his fingers, “Smoking herbal cigarettes too quickly can knock you out like taking a sleeping potion. The cumulative effects can hit your system all at once, which is why chain smoking lower strength flavors can be more dangerous than smoking just one of the higher strength flavors. I didn’t do a good job of pacing myself last night, hence the oversleeping and late checkout.”

“I had no idea what you were doing - and I waited”, Harry was vaguely aware that his stomach was curdling with something hot and angry, but his mouth was too busy to let his thoughts catch up with this not being the best plan, “You knew it wasn’t safe, but you were still bloody chain smoking --”

“Forgive me for not thinking clearly”, Malfoy’s voice had gone dark, and despite the passing resemblance to a raccoon, he was waking up as adrenaline started to prepare him for a fight, “It might be better than a hangover, but it’s shitty enough I don’t want to do this again. I didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Saint Potter, but mistakes happen.”

Harry didn’t remember making the conscious decision to take the herbal cig away because he’s quite sure he would’ve made the slightly more thought out decision to try to take away the pack of cigarettes instead of focusing on the lone visible cig. But he still found himself lunging forward, grabbing the smooth tan object, and tripping backwards over the trunk on the floor as Malfoy tried to regain it. He didn’t remember stepping away from his body, so Harry figured he just couldn’t remember all of the details of how an awkward wrestling match led to him being pinned on the floor of the carriage in between the trunk and Malfoy’s bench. Malfoy’s magic thrummed with anger in the spaces between Malfoy’s hands and his wrists, and he was half growling in Harry’s ear, “Yngvi-Frey help me, I had to watch my friends drink themselves to death just to make it through the day, and I jumped through every bloody hoop the Ministry put in my way to get a prescription approved, and you are not taking this away from me, Potter.”

The hot anger was ebbing away, and a part of Harry’s brain was horrified to realize he’d been waiting for this. Even though he’d been somewhat relieved Malfoy hadn’t stormed back into the room to whip him, he’d been anxious and wound up tight waiting for it to happen. Now, Malfoy was holding him down and reminding him that his Owner was in charge, and something was unwinding. Harry had stopped physically fighting when Malfoy’s hands had pinned his wrists in place, and the loss of adrenaline was making all of his muscles pliant. He didn’t have to take a literal whipping to take Malfoy’s anger, to let it pass through him, and to drain them both of the roiling heat. The magic skating along his skin had changed, but the only thing Harry could tell was that it was no longer angry. The pleasant loose limb feeling was backfiring with Malfoy letting go and pulling away because Harry couldn’t get the message to cross from thoughts - _Don’t leave_ \- to muscles so they could move. The trunk to Harry’s right was lifted up onto his bench, and dark gray eyes were back, objectively taking his body in, “Are you hurt?”

Harry frowned at the man kneeling beside him. That’s not how being used to vent was supposed to go, and his thoughts were struggling with how to respond because he was supposed to be as quiet as possible in order to not piss the venter off any further. Malfoy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “Did I pull something, or land too roughly, or -- I dunno, are you in physical pain?”, a small shake of the head, “You went limp, and something has happened. I just -- Did you step away?”

Words, so many bloody words. Harry licked his lips and found his tongue as numb as his thoughts. A little nip of fear and adrenaline prodded everything back online because he didn’t want to make Malfoy mad at not responding after they’d just gotten some of it out of their systems. He slowly pushed himself onto his side and up into a sitting position because sitting up too fast and getting dizzy would undo what little thought processes were starting back up. Harry squinted at yesterday’s wrinkled shirt instead of looking Malfoy in the eye, whispering in the too quiet carriage, “I don’t want you to be like Matei. You were supposed to come back.”

Malfoy exhaled sharply and stood up to throw back more of the strong tea. He dug around in his trunk for a black bag that looked similar to Harry’s Laundering bag and a wooden box before sprawling out on his bench again. He popped open the lid on the box and handed it to Harry, who had to admit the last thing he was expecting to see was a collection of spools of thread forming a veritable rainbow. Malfoy was flicking his wand in small semi circles to lay down and tweak white lines tracing out a pattern of leaves. He carefully traced out runes over the veins and let the alterations shimmer into a settled outline before holding out his hand, voice impassive, “Three colors.”

Harry swallowed quickly and scanned the first half of the box with the reds, oranges, and yellows. He doubted a cool color scheme would go over well, but maybe one of - no, that looked oddly pink-purple. Not even in the Wizarding world had he ever seen that shade in leaves. Autumnal, Harry was trying to find something in that area. Not one of the deeper shades of dark red because there were an awful lot of varieties of blood. He pulled out a bright ‘Quaffle Red’ and something a bit yellower than he thought ‘Pumpkin Orange’ actually looked, but he wasn’t going to argue with the thread names. Malfoy hadn’t spoken or made any noise during this process, but an ominous ticking sprouted in the back of Harry’s mind. Shit, he was taking forever on this, and it was just picking a thread color, nothing remotely life or death important about it. He didn’t trust the metallic thread because he had no idea if magic glitter was worse than Muggle varieties or not, but he didn’t want the eyestrain of the neon options. It would be so much easier if there weren’t so many shades of yellow. He figured the soft pastel that reminded him of the fluffy stage of baby chicks wouldn’t look quite so washed out next to the black, so he pulled out ‘Dying Phoenix Chick Yellow’ and handed all three over. Malfoy nodded, stretched and shook out his wrists, and started threading a needle before Harry had shut the lid on the box, “What’re you doing?”

“Traditionalists call it stitchcraft”, Malfoy gently pricked his right thumb to allow a drop of blood to land on the end of the red thread before rolling it into a knot and picking up the outlined shoulder strap of the bag. He started from the left end of the shoulder strap and kept his eyes on the stitches, “There’s subtle but strong magic in weaving, sewing, and other fabric arts. You’ll never lose this bag, and no one will steal it”, the red threaded rune he’d finished glowed gold and faded, “Runes make some wixen uncomfortable because you have to feed them blood to activate their magic, but there’s a long history of incorporating them into embroidery magic because you inevitably bleed a little during the project anyways.”

“Hm-mm”, Harry set the box on the floor next to him and slowly sat with his back up against the bench. He sat up straighter and leaned his head back, nudging into Malfoy’s knee. Malfoy’s inflection went a bit strict and stuffy as he carefully recited someone else’s words, “It is an esteemed Hearth Craft, and young Purebloods these days should be well rounded magic users. Your courtship profile will be sent to the bottom of the stack if you can’t handle basic alterations and sewing repairs, young man.”

Harry couldn’t imagine Narcissa talking like that, but he could picture a disapproving portrait of some long dead Malfoy or Black ancestor nagging the youngest living Malfoy during one of their summer holidays. He couldn’t really speak to sewing skills because Aunt Petunia making him help sew buttons back onto a dress shirt that Dudley had outgrown but still tried to put on wasn’t a wide knowledge base. Malfoy’s voice had settled back to normal, though he spoke quietly, “Knowing how to join two separate items together is rather handy in a war. Casting sutures is easier if you already know your stitches, you may need to sew the energetic fabric layers of space and time back together while repairing a Vanishing Cabinet, and so on. Mind Healer suggested reclaiming this from being associated with the war, and it turns out repeatedly stabbing something is less destructive than drinking, starting a duel, and other fun ways to redirect anger.”

“Mind Healer?”, Harry winced at how he zeroed in on a rather minor detail. When had Malfoy needed to cast sutures? How he could talk about repairing the Vanishing Cabinet so indifferently? It sounded like complicated magic, for starters, but it also directly led to Death Eaters entering Hogwarts, and Fenrir Greyback, and Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower, and he took a deep breath to not fall down that rabbit hole. Malfoy hummed, “Wizengamot mandated Mind Healing sessions for the length of my probation. Probably would’ve benefited from it when I was younger, but it’s never too late to make changes.”

“So you smoke herbal cigs and - and sew?”, Malfoy snorted at the undisguised disbelief in Harry’s voice. He had first hand experience with verbal sparring and physical lashing out, but he also had to admit that he hadn’t been a bastion of calm and cool-headed thinking when they were at Hogwarts. Honestly, he doubted anyone going through puberty would be, let alone adding in academic stress and a war, but Harry couldn’t muster up very much indignation at what they did to each other. A scuffle after a Quidditch match here and a broken nose there paled in comparison to what some men liked to do, and he was rather lucky Malfoy wasn’t channeling any of their anger after provoking an altercation. A loud pop came from above him that might’ve been Malfoy’s spine popping, “Unfortunately, the Malfoy line has Veela ancestry, so we’re a bit predisposed to anger management issues on top of everything that’s gone on, and bottling everything away didn’t work while growing up. I mean, I clearly still need to work on taking a step back, but having something to do with my hands helps.”

“I thought”, Harry licked his lips, “I thought that’s what you were going to do”, Malfoy must’ve stopped sewing because his left hand had worked its way into Harry’s hair, “Work out your anger. On me.” Malfoy’s grip tightened briefly, but he didn’t speak, and Harry felt something anxious knot in his stomach, “I’m not trying to tell you that you should do that, and honestly, it’s probably not something your Mind Healer would approve of, but I was expecting it last night.”

“I had already started to lash out at dinner”, Malfoy took a sip of his tea and started to rub his thumb in small circles into Harry’s scalp, which was pleasant but rather distracting for the current conversation, “I had to hide my Dark Mark during the war, and it was best if the guards in Azkaban didn’t see any visible Marks because they didn’t particularly care about the differences in initiated Dark Marks and other varieties”, he paused, and Harry felt a bit guilty at the panic that he might have to listen to what Azkaban was like because he was not prepared for that, not right now. He either tensed or Malfoy picked up on the awkwardness in the air, “Azkaban isn’t something I like to talk about. My probation included assisting with rebuilding Hogwarts and attending my Eighth year in order to take my NEWTs, so I got out of there by the summer solstice. It caused the least amount of unpleasantry to cover the Mark at school, and there’s a fair bit of nuance to international spaces and their Mark variations, so I hadn’t planned on revealing a British Dark Mark while traveling. I didn’t react very well to being forced to show it, but taking it out on you physically probably wouldn’t have done much to help at the time.”

Harry had a feeling he should respond to some part of that. Malfoy was remarkably composed while talking about his Dark Mark, apparently only a short stint in Azkaban, and probation. Yet the comforting pressure and rhythm on his scalp left shortly after this revelation, so Harry reckoned that resuming sewing was a sign that he wasn’t as calm as he sounded. It might’ve taken a while to get to casual responses after who knows what all responses from other students during the rebuilding of Hogwarts and a whole school year with Dumbledore’s Army alumni. Had the Treason Trials actually died down yet, or was his case simply no longer front and center in the papers after a year? It might’ve taken most of the past year with the Mind Healer to get to this level of acceptance and composure. It certainly wasn’t what Harry expected of the Malfoy he remembered, but perhaps it fit with Draco.

~

Harry readjusted his hold on the shoulder strap of his new bag and waited for Draco to make his way through a line of customers for mititei (“How can you not know if you like them or not? What did they feed you at University?”). There were three zippered compartments with Extendable options inside that Draco had matched to the outside thread colors; the red compartment held his Laundering bag, the orange currently held Elty, and until their carriage had arrived in Bucharest, the yellow one had held his trainers. He wasn’t hauling around precious jewels or anything of monetary value, but it was nice to not be trailing behind Draco like an equally useless if solid shadow. Draco himself had a similar Extendable bag, but it looked an awful lot like he’d managed to add onto and upgrade his Hogwarts bag with the neatly embroidered Slytherin crest on the flap, intertwining snakes along the shoulder strap, and emerald green and silver insides. He had no idea how it was compartmentalized because their combined trunk somehow fit in there without disturbing anything else, but Harry was willing to chalk it up to the wonders of magic.

“Poftă bună”, Draco handed over one of the sausage rolls covered in mustard, and while it was tasty, he still wasn’t entirely sure why not recognizing this item had shocked Draco. A sausage without a casing is still, more or less, a sausage. It’s not like the trainees had collaborated on the menu or put in requests. Now that he thought about it though, Harry might’ve recognized the spice blend as the sausage they were given once a month as a reward for good behavior. He’d only qualified a handful of times in the past year, so he wasn’t surprised he didn’t instantly recognize -- _Shit, I was supposed to be paying attention to that, wasn’t I?_ Draco glanced down at the offered glass bottle in his hand and then back up to him, “Socată. Elderberry flowers and a bit of lemon. It’s not half bad.”

Harry nodded and took the bottle before his brain could finish processing an apology. His attention might’ve wandered a bit, but it wasn’t a punishable offence with Draco. (So far.) He relaxed at the familiar sweetness of the drink. Charlie and several other dragon tamers kept a careful eye on their elder shrubs to make sure the small dragons didn’t burn anything before they could harvest the flowers, though they had simply called the drink elderflower juice. It was a relief to still have some memories of Romania untainted by the University of Constanța and Matei. Draco seemed equally relieved that Harry had finally taken the drink, and he set off down the street at what was for him a leisurely pace so Harry didn’t have to run to keep up.

He obediently followed two steps behind and two steps to the right of Draco, a trained distance to not walk into an Owner and be perfectly positioned to kneel should they stop walking. Draco alternated between glancing at his right wrist to a planetary watch and tilting his head at various stone walls and street corners. Harry wasn’t sure why they had to take such a meandering path through an open market with stalls everywhere until Draco’s left arm spasmed. He threw up a quick privacy shield and peeled the Concealing Charm bandage off his forearm, frowning at the teal aura pulsating around the Dark Mark. Harry couldn’t see anything to warrant the strange reaction, but Draco didn’t seem overly surprised, side eyeing the air to his left like he could see the culprit. He traced a few runes over the eerie looking Mark and whispered, first in English then in Romanian, “I mean no harm to Ceaușescu or Partidul Communist Român. I am not a British spy. Long live the Republica Socialistă România.”

“Erm”, Harry stared at the black skull and serpent as the teal light sunk into the dark skin and made it look like the immobile imagery was twisting and shifting slightly before everything settled into place and the Dark Mark returned to its normal appearance. Draco shoved the bandage into his bag and rolled his shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension while he still had the privacy shield in place, “It’s the password, in a manner of speaking. The later years of Ceaușescu’s regime included strict ward updates to prevent Western spies, and I obviously couldn’t avoid them all in this public area.”

“But why would a Dark Mark…?”, Harry trailed off at the mix of emotions battling for supremacy on Draco’s face. The weary glint in his eye was exasperated, so it was quite likely that this was relatively common knowledge in the Wizarding world. His frown was pinched, though, so Harry got the distinct impression this wasn’t anything to boast about. The clenched set of his mouth and carefully blank expression working its way across his face was too guarded, and Draco ended the privacy warding with a quick flick of his wand, “It’s a bit complicated and not suitable for public conversation.”

Harry let the topic rest as he continued to follow Draco through the market, and with the revealed Mark, they were no longer weaving around ward triggers. He was faced with proof that Dark Marks weren’t rendered into magically inactive blobs of ink last night, and he had to admit that this was beyond his areas of Wizarding world know how. He’d never had to know about international Death Eaters, and as far as he could tell, History of Magic was a useless class just barely beating out Divination in terms of practical application. It had been Charlie, who had started Dragonology Studies in the first years after the fall of communism, who had explained some of the peculiar habits of his colleagues in relation to the Cold War. Harry quickened his pace to keep up with Draco, whose body language conveyed he was simply walking at a more natural speed, but he wasn’t thrilled at practically needing to jog, “Bloody hell, you said we had plenty of time before the hotel would let us check in...”

“Sorry”, Draco mumbled around a mouthful of something and held up a small pouch of dried meat, “It takes a bit of work to find a Baba Yaga stall”, and Harry turned to take in the offerings of the Baba Yaga. _Why does that sound familiar?_ An old woman with crow’s feet and laugh lines smiled encouragingly as she motioned to her wares, looking relatively harmless in dark clothes and a beautiful white lace shawl. Full sized and sample sized pouches of dried meat with notes in Cyrillic on slips of paper above them took up their immediate half of the shelving, but there were neatly folded lengths of lace as well. She was about his height with a weather-worn face and a bun that would make McGonagall proud, and yet there was something about her that seemed off. He shivered under the scrutiny of those black eyes, and he realized when she spoke that her teeth were unnaturally - _Inhumanly?_ \- sharp and pointed, though they didn’t interfere with a Russian accent coming through, “I am Baba Pronya, and I have many flavors of Yaga jerky for sale. Beef with chilis and barbeque, venison with honey, pork”, she smiled a wide, tooth filled smile that elicited another shiver, “Pork with an ancient Yaga garlic recipe, if you’re feeling brave?”

Harry didn’t have the available mental space to think about his Hogwarts House because this Pronya who looked like she could be someone’s grandmother was not human. He could feel it in her magic, wild like the forest dirt and snow laden winds, sniffing around him like a curious dog. He could feel something deeper than his conscious thoughts tense when her eyes crinkled, the gaze of an ambush predator who was patient enough to wait for you to walk into your own death. Something primal that was intimately aware of being Prey sat up when she smiled with that mouth full of meat-tearing teeth. He wasn’t aware that he’d taken a step backwards until Draco’s hand came to rest in between his shoulder blades, and the gentle pressure was enough to stop him even though he had instincts telling him to run. Draco lowered his voice to a whisper, but Harry got the distinct impression Pronya could still hear them perfectly, “Manners, Henrik. Baba Yaga are the Eastern European and Russian hags. Yes, she has extra teeth - the full 32 the human jawbone is capable of producing. Yes, her teeth really are that sharp because hags have adapted to eating human flesh as their primary meat source.”

“Human?!”, Harry was a bit embarrassed that his voice came out at least a pitch higher than normal and very squeaky, but Draco slowly shifted his grip in the middle of Harry’s back and continued to speak, incredibly calm in the face of something that could eat them, “Despite Ministerial classification as only having rudimentary or primitive magic, hags are more magically sophisticated than many wixen believe them to be. They are also capable of intermarrying with Muggles and wixen, and the infamous Muggle fairytale about a cannibalistic witch of the same name was simply one Baba Yaga who didn’t try to hide from them. They are very skilled butchers, and they don’t just offer human flesh.”

“I learned lacemaking in Mikhaylov like my мама before me”, Pronya took a few steps to the side of her stall covered in lace samples. She expertly pulled examples forward with a toothless smile, displaying her handiwork, “Shawls, scarves, head coverings, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, clothes are commission only”, Harry found it easier to quell the animal part of his brain as her magic shifted, proud and inviting like newly opened flowers on the cusp of the spring thaw, “I’ve got simple patterns with minimal magic - ideal for going undetected among the магглов, the Muggles. Unobtrusive Sticking and Warming Charms to withstand harsh winters, and a variety of colors.”

Draco cleared his throat as she pulled a shimmery black shawl forward with delicate twists of silver thread and small white pearls in a beautiful constellation map, “I mean no offense, Baba Pronya, but I’m afraid metallic lace is out of today’s budget.”

The hag nodded her head in acknowledgement and gently returned the shawl to a safe bottom shelf behind the counter top, “A foolish man tried to underpay on a commission, but I am confident I can find a home for her one day”, her teeth flashed in the midday sunlight in a feral smirk, “He had just enough fat for a delicious marbling. Best politician stew in decades.”

Pronya threw her head back with a loud, good natured bark of laughter. Draco chuckled along with her and slid his hand up to rest his arm across Harry’s shoulders. It probably looked a hair more casual than their prior arrangement, but Harry was more concerned with the automatic weak smile and how his nerves weren’t jumping with the animal terror of being prey. He’d carried on a reasonably civil chat with a venomous Acromantula in his second year and managed to be introduced to a bloody vampire at Slughorn’s Christmas party in his sixth, so this shouldn’t be quite so difficult. Draco bought a pouch of a mild barbeque beef jerky for Harry and the full sized option of his sample, the ancient pork and garlic recipe. He didn’t want to think about why Pronya had such a knowing smile at Draco’s option, but she had gratefully waited for him to use a shimmering white dragonhide case to convert his galleons to rubles and pull out a stack of banknotes, “Спасибо, Domnule Malfoy. Every kopek helps me to mend my poor house’s leg.”

Draco smiled politely, even though Harry was quite sure he was equally thrown by the attribution of legs to a house. He frowned at the little white birds arranged around a robin’s egg blue handkerchief in a looping flight pattern. Baba Yaga supposedly lived in a cabin on tall chicken legs in the Muggle myth, so it was entirely possible her house did have some sort of leg or legs. He nibbled at a slice of his jerky, which didn’t taste horribly different from a Muggle variety he’d once nicked from Dudley’s room, and let his eyes wander over the multicolored lacework. Who would’ve thought he’d be perusing genuine Russian lace in his lifetime? A deep burgundy shawl with thin lines of yellow interlocking into diamonds caught his eye, not that he was seriously looking. The yellow heraldic lions in a shifting pattern of positions around the edge just reminded him of the comfortably well-worn couches in the Gryffindor common room, is all. He wasn’t sure if it was the memory of curling up by the fire late at night, the faint tingle of the Warming Charms, or the summer sun, but Harry could practically feel how comfortingly warm the shawl would be. Not that he was considering asking Draco if it was in today’s budget, mind.

“I’m not a Legilimens, Henrik”, Draco turned his head slightly to speak softly and all but directly into Harry’s ear. He couldn’t do anything about the wave of gooseflesh and small shiver on a physical level, but he could certainly ignore that it had just happened. They were in public next to a cannibalistic hag’s stall, and there should be nothing about the situation to warrant that reaction. Harry gnawed on a thick strip of jerky and side eyed the case with thin silver cursive labeling it a Currency Converter. He glanced back to the shawl in question, “Can I -- _May I_ have something? Just one. As long as it’s within your budget for today”, he sped up more out of embarrassment than fear of being denied, “And as long as you’re okay with buying me something, of course.”

“As your Owner”, Harry couldn’t help another shiver at the proprietary edge to Draco’s voice, “I’m expected to cover financial expenses during your contracted service. It doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a bottomless well or that you have unlimited access to Malfoy or Black vaults under my name, but the compensation clauses tend to relate to emergencies and unforeseen events. Gods help me, I don’t plan on filing for bankruptcy in the next three years, so I think I can cover one lace item. You just have to communicate which one it is.”

Pronya’s magic curled around his legs like bubbles of sunshine bursting against his skin, and Harry wasn’t expecting her to be so happy that they’d bought one of her shawls. She carefully folded the lace into a small bundle to fit inside the complementary Laundering pouch with spells calibrated to be as accommodating of delicate cloth like silk and lace items as possible, and she smiled as he accepted it from her wrinkled hands, “It is not the obvious visible signs of a monster that should scare you, Henrik. It is the devils who cut off their horns and wings, so they blend in and hide who will do more harm”, something about her black eyes were compelling and he couldn’t break her intense gaze, “Do not fear the Darkness of Karnon. The whips, knives, blood, the pain. Trust the honest monsters who can admit when they dance with that darkness. It is the men who deny the pain they inflict who will harm you.”

~

“Welcome to Bijuteria Micul Paris”, a clean cut man in his early thirties and a pale gray suit led Draco and Harry through a spacious lobby to the bank of lifts. He carried an ornately detailed key that was the same pale off-white and gold as the marble flooring and looked too old for the electricity, buttons that lit up in the lift, and the overall modern Muggle feel of the hotel. The key undid the Concealing Charms and other spellwork attached to an extra section of buttons with various runes, and the man selected one of these before continuing, “The bottom floors are reserved for our Muggle clientele, so please be mindful of casting spells, showing your wand, flying a broom, and other magical activities in the common areas, which does include Ballrooms One through Six. Should you lose your room key, please find one of the staff with Grand Hotel Continental and The Jewel of Little Paris on their name tags.”

The wizard gestured to his shiny black name tag with both the Muggle and Wizarding names of the hotel in gold lettering above his name, Vasile. Draco accepted two identical room keys, and the lift doors opened to a carpet with deep blues, greens, and possibly gold interwoven into the ornate design. Harry felt like he’d wandered into the wrong establishment walking down the hall in jeans and trainers, and even Draco in his business casual clothes looked a tad underdressed for the richly carved mahogany doors they were passing. Vasile stopped in front of a door with a combination of silver runes on the door and nodded to Draco, “You have access to Concerto, Balkan Bistro, and the Victoria Club, but please use discretion with”, he paused and glanced at Harry, “With overt paraphernalia in areas where Muggles could walk in. You may present your room key at the Edeen Spa and Ballroom Seven for further Ethelry accommodations.”

“Mulțumesc foarte mult, Vasile”, Draco nodded politely and inserted one of the room keys he was holding into the door. Harry was expecting more of the deep rich colors from the hallway and the lobby, but their room was more subdued. Pale gray wood flooring, some sort of off-white color on the walls, a shimmering white-gray quilt and pillow collection on a four poster bed. The black wood made the d-rings and chains attached to the posts and an overhead hook point stand out, but thankfully, the black armchairs next to a fancy looking not-quite-a-couch in the same silver embroidery on black design didn’t look like they were lifted from a dungeon. The bathroom was a kaleidoscope of white, pale gray, and black marble with shimmery white accents. Harry squinted at the fancy sconces in there and in the rest of the room. He didn’t know his precious stones and gems, but the shimmering pearlescent effect on the accenting looked an awful lot like it might be from actual pearls. Draco finished placing their trunk against one of the walls and glanced into the bathroom where Harry was glaring at one of the dispensaries for shampoo. He nodded at the mother of pearl button, “The Jewel’s theme tries to be subtle. We’re in one of the Pearl rooms.”

 _This is subtle?_ , Harry wiped away a smudged fingerprint from the side of the large tub that may or may not have been made of similar marble as the floor in the off-white variety. It was hard to tell when it’s shape took after an oyster shell that was popped open and somewhat matched the large double sink below a horrifically large mirror. He kind of missed the kitschy little inns with their more approachable mismatched floral and lace. A disappointed sigh floated in from the bedroom, and Harry stuck his head out of the bathroom to see Draco sprawled across the mound of fancy pillows with several now near the edge of the bedspread or on the floor. It certainly looked like Draco might’ve just jumped in the bed, but he also looked oddly put out, grumbling, “I forgot the mattress has spellwork. Just standard Silencing and Cushioning Charms to prevent noise and excessive bouncing, but still.”

Harry set his bag at the foot of the bed, sat on the edge, and leaned back. He honestly couldn’t pay attention to what was going in the direction of the ceiling - A chandelier draped in strings of pearls? Some obscenely detailed molding and decorations? A bloody mirror? Who knew? - because the level of resistive support yet relaxing give was brilliant. He hoped the Malfoys had stupidly expensive and enchanted mattresses at the Manor. He arched his back and stretched appreciatively, letting his eyes settle half-closed. The mattress shifted slightly from above him and Draco’s magic curled playfully around his neck and outstretched hands as a pillow brushed against his fingertips, “I don’t bite, you know”, Harry couldn’t help but snicker at the flirtatious dip in the matter of fact clarification, “Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

Draco’s magic withdrew, leaving the tingling ghost-like sensation of a playful nip, and Harry wondered if it was an Owner / slave component he hadn’t heard of. The gentle warmth and air of familiarity wasn’t unpleasant, but he’d also been able to pick up on Pronya’s magic. Was that simply because she was a hag? Was it related to him being afluit and under contract? Perhaps it was a passive defensive measure? A light brush on his shoulder brought his attention back to the moment, and he cracked an eye to take in the hesitant look on Draco’s face while the latter ran his fingers over the shoulder seam of the Falmouth Falcons t-shirt he was still wearing, “I was a bit distracted with checking out this morning. You weren’t uncomfortable in my clothes today, were you?”

Harry sat up and turned to face Draco so he wouldn’t have to decode upside down facial expressions. He figured that saying wearing other people’s clothes wasn’t a huge deal because he grew up with hand me downs would come across blasé, but he’d honestly forgotten about it with the scuffle over the herbal cig and meeting Baba Pronya. Draco had sat up in the midst of the throw pillows, and Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about the conversation taking a turn towards the serious. He glanced down at the cotton with its shades of blue, fingered the bottom hem, and shrugged, choosing enough truth to not anger Draco, “I thought it would reaffirm your Ownership last night, and you might calm down a bit, or something. I mean, clothes sharing has worked like that in the past, so --”, he frowned at almost sharing comparing Malfoy to Matei, “But you didn’t come back, and it’s a t-shirt, so it’s not like it was horrible to wear in public. Reckoned you liked doing something that flies under the radar, y’know? It’s not like we can walk through a public market dressed for a scene.”

Draco tilted his head and looked Harry over in a detached way. He didn’t seem either upset or ecstatic at the line of thinking, but he did seem to be evaluating its merits. Finally, he nodded and reached for one of the laminated booklets on the nightstand, unperturbed by the entirely French Concerto menu, “I didn’t cancel the spot I reserved for myself and my hetaera at The Dragon’s Den tonight. It’s not the sort of place trainees frequent during their training, but I figured you may not be up to a packed nightclub.”

“I handled that opera and today’s market just fine”, Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on why he was irritated that Draco had made this assumption. His unease with crowds in public was directly correlated to whether his identity was hidden and the crowd knew he was The Boy Who Lived (Twice). A pale eyebrow arched while Draco looked up over the menu at him, and Harry had to fight away the déjà vu to a younger Malfoy and bickering at Hogwarts. This Malfoy didn’t devolve into fighting and tried to explain his reasoning calmly, “I don’t have a reliable way of knowing where you were taken this past year, and I don’t particularly want to trigger a dissociative episode. What if I take you somewhere you had an unpleasant experience at? Your body may have a sense trigger I don’t know about. What if we bump into training staff or clients you recognize? What if you meet one of the men who were Călăul and hearing their voice is enough to flashback to their scene? Gods forbid, what if we run into Matei with a new trainee?”

Oh, bloody fuck to hell. Harry felt like he’d been doused unexpectedly with ice cold water because it made infuriating sense now that Draco had said all that. Trainees, or at least those at the University of Constanța, often didn’t know the explicit directions to where group excursions took place. Perhaps those who could remember all the names of the clubs, were familiar with Romanian geography, and knew Romanian could figure out at least some of the locations, but there was still the issue of being taken to areas that catered to foreign clientele, which might have crossed borders. Harry knew his ignorance of the language and basic geography of this foreign country made the nightclubs all blur together. He wished he could say that an innocent club with people dancing, drinking, and maybe listening to the music wouldn’t cause him to step away from his body, but he honestly didn’t know. His stomach was clenching painfully, and he didn’t want to think about running into former clients, whether Călăul or not, or Matei. Harry blinked at the back of the menu and the wine options came back into focus, “How do you know I haven’t been to The Dragon’s Den then?”

“It’s less of a nightclub and more of a --”, Draco frowned at the page of the menu he was looking at and nibbled at his bottom lip in thought. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed, but Harry wasn’t sure why this venue seemed to be hard to describe. Was it a dungeon, a strip club, some other type of bar? He scoffed at a paper pamphlet that he was keeping firmly out of sight behind the Concerto menu, “Well, they describe themselves as an erotic performance venue. You can tailor your viewing experience to witches, wizards, or wixen, and you won’t face difficulties with bringing a same-sex guest, so they’re not quite the same as a gentlewizard’s club.”

“Erm”, Harry picked at the hem of Draco’s t-shirt, unsure of how to politely ask what the fuck he was supposed to do attending this odd, probably high end strip club, “Why are you taking a guest to an erotic performance?”

“You can’t enter until you’re of age, and you can’t book a seat alone, for starters”, Draco had temporarily closed the menu and the mysterious pamphlet with a finger marking his place, and he was looking at Harry carefully. It was more like he was observing his reaction, and Harry suddenly felt like he was failing some sort of test. Draco continued, “I’ve only ever attended registered as a couple, but groups can register with different seating arrangements - triads, quads, and so on. It’s not a public space like other establishments”, he paused and motioned to Harry, “I don’t have us booked in a section where anyone can interact with you. As my guest, you’re off limits to the other patrons.”

“Hm-mm”, Harry appreciated the sentiment, but he was still a little lost on why he needed to attend. Draco must have seen some of this in his face because he tried to politely explain, “Performers only interact with other performers, and guests only interact with guests”, he sighed and cut to the chase when Harry only nodded mutley, “The performers might fuck each other or they might not because they’re only providing the erotic stimulus for guests. A component of each night’s performance is the live mixing of non-identifying noises, if the guests fuck.”

“Non-identifying noises”, his voice had gone flat, but Harry wasn’t as shocked as he might have sounded. It did indeed sound complicated enough for high end clients to feel like they were doing something a little more dignified than fucking in semi-public. Draco nodded, “Selective Silencing Charms keep conversations, dirty talk, and names private. Anything else - like moaning - is free game to be mixed. However”, he now looked and sounded deathly serious instead of simply sharing information, “Guests are not required to do anything even remotely physical, let alone sexual. There’s just enough privacy warding for each area of seating to not be completely exposed to the public, and most wixen have their attention focused elsewhere.”

“What’s the point in going if the guests don’t fuck?”, Harry was frowning more out of confusion than being upset with the idea of this club. It actually didn’t sound half bad, but he was still unsure of what he was going to do when it sounded like Draco didn’t plan on doing anything. If sex sounds were part of the music, there surely had to be a certain amount of guests who didn’t just sit and watch. Draco’s magic felt like a cool wave washing over his body, but he couldn’t tell what emotion was behind it, “It supports different performers, some of who are different dancers, bondage artists, musicians, and sex workers who want to put on erotic performances without having sex with a client. Some of these establishments are the main queer venues for wixen who don’t want to deal with Muggle homophobia, and they’re friendly to polyamorous groups. Some wixen like dipping a toe into semi-public sex without dealing with the illegalities of getting caught in almost any other public area. Need I continue?”

“Nu, Domnule”, Harry still thought the club sounded a bit pretentious, but he couldn’t write it off as witches and wizards with too much money to just go to the strip club like everyone else. He looked down at the clothes he had on and intertwined his fingers into the hem of the t-shirt, a little worried it was going to be as expensive as this hotel, “I’m not opposed to attending, if you would like to go, and, er, if I have anything that meets its dress code.”

Draco snorted and waved his hand dismissively, already reopening the menu, “It’s not like Bijuteria Micul Paris. There are lockers and small safes for those who wish to undress, so the dress code is rather casual for entry. You’ll be fine in what you have on. Now, how do you feel about Vichyssoise?”

~

Harry had to admit that Draco was right about The Dragon’s Den not being an establishment for trainees, unless the wait staff were from a school for taeogion. Entry was staggered between acts to allow for groups of sated and relaxed people to leave and fresh blood to enter. A pleased wizard who looked to be around Matei’s age was confidently pulling a wizard and a witch out of the club by each hand, _Suppose that’s one way to figure out the vee_. A short pair of witches who looked to be around Dumbledore’s age left with a bottle of wine in the midst of an intense conversation about the pros and cons of non-humanoid sex toys (“If we were meant to fuck tentacles, the gods would’ve given them to us, Theophania”). A gruff looking wizard with salt and pepper hair who looked like he should be riding a motorcycle or possibly guarding the door in a rougher part of town blushed and all but melted into the shorter but no less intimidating witch in leather who’d been waiting behind Draco and Harry in line. The disembodied voice of a witch from inside the club carried throughout the outside crowd, “Nine o’clock entries may come forward. Please allow a 10 - 15 minute changeover and setup for the performers.”

Draco had taken ahold of Harry’s hand once they were through the door and bypassing an archway to the changing area he’d talked about. The gruff wizard could be seen in the public section undressing and just starting to reveal what looked like lace lingerie underneath his leather pants, but Draco wasn’t planning on either of them undressing tonight. He led the way in following a short witch, who may or may not have been part dwarf because Harry had trouble seeing her over the sprawling low couches forming the private seating for the groups. She left them in front of a booth against one wall, and Draco politely declined the offer of appetizers, drinks, or anything to eat as he settled on the couch behind a table conspicuously tall enough to hide a kneeling person. Harry looked from the slightly old fashioned microphone sitting in the middle of the table to a nearby collection of wizards and witches in The Dragon’s Den uniforms sitting in front of a number of keyboards. He couldn’t quite make out the soft music over the indistinct chatter of other booths during the intermission, but they couldn’t be anyone other than the live mixers. Draco patted the couch, “There’s more than enough room to sit down.”

It seemed rude to insist on standing, even though Harry was partially aware he’d nudged in between being fully present and stepping away. He wasn’t worried about any of the other patrons trying to size him up and inspect him because it was clearly obvious that they were in a section where people weren’t sharing their guests, but there was something about the ambient heat of bodies in the dim lighting and the anticipation in the air that was familiar. Right now, the atmosphere wasn’t too far off from a gentlewizard’s club the trainees had been taken to with its quiet in between acts jazz. Harry had sat down at some point, but he wasn’t sure why since he fully expected to be told to kneel. Draco slowly settled his hand over Harry’s on the couch, and he was tugged back into his body from the hazy preparation for service, “Harry, are you alright?”

He nodded, and Draco intertwined their fingers in order to pull Harry’s hand closer, brushing the fingertips of his other hand in a reassuring pattern. He lowered his voice more for Harry’s benefit than to avoid any listeners, “Selective Silencing Charms, remember? You’re allowed to speak here, and I fully expect you to do so. If you’re uncomfortable, you just have to say something, and we’ll leave. Understand?”

“Da, Domnule”, Harry felt rather childish sitting in an erotic performance venue while Draco held his hand like this. He’d been in far more explicit clubs doing more than watching, and it looked like the performers in their viewing area were only setting up for rope suspension. Draco cleared his throat and made a point of speaking at a more normal volume, “I don’t want you to panic tonight, but you’re within 48 hours of finishing your antibiotic. The side effects of unpleasant pain during an erection should no longer be an issue”, his fingers twitched, and Draco’s hands enveloped his in gentle pressure, “I’m not saying we have to do anything sexual tonight, and you certainly don’t have to wank in public if you don’t want to. I’m not going to punish you or hold a rather normal response to watching an erotic show against you, okay?”

“Okay”, Harry cleared his throat and slowly withdrew his hand. He felt overexposed in a way he wasn’t used to after he’d acclimated to going without clothes at University. He took an unnecessarily long time untying his shoes and pushing them underneath the edge of the table, so he wouldn’t have to look directly at Draco, who remained silent. He stood and settled back down on the couch, curled up with his feet crossed. It felt like he had more control over his limbs this way, and it let him glance at the blond to his left. He’d politely crossed one leg over the other and was watching the rope bottom, a man slightly older them with a baby face, undress under the supervision of a similarly aged witch. Harry didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t uncomfortable with the hand holding. It just made him feel oddly vulnerable like he was a newly pubescent teen who needed reassured that his body wasn’t abnormal. The lights in the audience dimmed, and the lights illuminating the stage brightened to allow the witch to start working.

Despite Draco’s explanations at the hotel, the act wasn’t quite what Harry was expecting. The mixers played on their keyboards, and a medley of soft breathing and moans wove together into a song over the skeleton of piano and stringed instrument notes. However, it wasn’t loud enough to cover up the witch giving directions to the wizard to flex that muscle, hold that position, to ask if the rope was too tight. She circled him carefully to take in the crisscrossing deep purple and gold rope, and at a point where Harry was fairly certain a rope top would usually kneel in front of their bottom to adjust something around a thigh, he realized she was also making some allowances for the audience to see the process and not just the end result. It wasn’t what Harry would usually consider erotic. He’d attended plenty of bondage lessons at University and watching someone else get tied up was only interesting in that it meant he wasn’t getting tied up. But there was something about these two that meant he wasn’t surprised when a new collection of sighs and moans were layered into the song, a touch louder than the established sounds. The witch swatted his bum playfully as she made her first tie to a suspension point, and he laughed softly as she helped to support his weight with some sort of Floating Charm that also tickled.

It was incredibly intimate for a public scene, and Harry found himself squirming as a litany of gasps from someone’s orgasm formed the backdrop of the final knot and check of the ropes. The wizard was prone with his arms pulled up and behind his head, his calves bent back to his thighs, and his legs parted to display a half hard prick filling with the help of gravity. Harry’s prick gave an interested twitch as the witch murmured something in a different language and let her hands run over his back, clearly proud of her handiwork. She picked up a set of thinner, silk bindings, and he clenched his hands over his knees at the resounding chorus of moans as she started to carefully wind the silk around the wizard’s prick. It was mesmerizing and heady and absurdly grounding to watch her build a silk cage and then expertly manhandle the wizard until he was blissed out and leaking through the silk in a sticky line to the floor. Harry was uncomfortably aware of his heartbeat, and the heat trapped in his jeans, and the feel of the zip against his prick without the normal layer of pants to buffer, and he had to force himself to breath like a normal human being just to keep his hands from wandering. He wasn’t the only one being affected from the sounds emanating from the mixers’ keyboards and speakers, and much too soon, the witch was untying the wizard in a slow reverse of the beginning and holding him, rocking slightly as they came down from the scene.

Harry exhaled shakily as the lighting in the audience increased. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on deep breathing while people stood to leave and others came in. The ten o’clock act didn’t sound like it needed as much preparation, and he wasn’t sure if he could make it through another act. His prick was keeping him in his body, surprisingly enough, but it was also begging for attention, and as he tried to readjust on the couch, he realized with a shuddering inhale that he might literally not be able to make it through the next act with a damp patch already forming in his jeans. Draco’s magic curled around his shoulders in an approving embrace, and Harry opened his eyes to turn a somewhat dazed expression his way. Draco looked remarkably unaffected by the show, but there was a familiar hungry glint as his eyes as he took in Harry, tented jeans with a damp spot, trying not to touch himself, and blushing in the rather well lit lighting of their booth. He looked an awful lot like a cat who’d cornered a canary and knew the catch was inevitable, and Harry couldn’t help but shiver as his prick twitched and the warm dampness in his jeans grew.

“Color?”, Draco’s voice was even and conversational. Harry glanced back to the stage where the next act was starting, a trio of men with cat paw prints inked onto their hips. They were undressing, and one of the three was stretched out across a cushioned table with a shiny cock cage already visible. There were a collection of toys, and his prick twitched again when he recognized the stretching implements - though his memories of being on the receiving end were certainly less pleasant than this - for the man to be double penetrated. An insistent pressure on his chin, and Harry couldn’t fight looking back at Draco, who looked less like a waiting predator in the shadows and more like a worried Owner now. His thoughts were taking a little longer than usual to marshal into memories and responses, but he didn’t want Draco to be concerned. The recent memory of the witch holding her rope bottom surfaced, and an annoyingly unashamed voice whispered in the back of his mind, _Liar_. Harry shivered again and crawled forward on his knees, his voice hoarse, “Green.”

Draco’s fingers felt cool against his cheek, and a part of Harry’s brain was embarrassed at the thought that he might be blushing. He tried to think ahead to what he wanted to do, but the act was starting and the wet sound of a tongue on flesh joined the music. The man on the table moaned and it echoed back from the audience. Harry’s prick twitched again, but he didn’t particularly want to watch an arse getting eaten out right now. He wanted friction, but it was like trying to get from point A to point C, and his thoughts were unhelpfully stuck at point B focused on trying to breathe normally instead of panting. He leaned forward to rest his forehead on Draco’s shoulder and swallowed at the warm pleased feeling of Draco’s magic wrapping around him, caressing his neck and dripping down his spine. Harry blinked at the too close shirt collar in front of his eyes and sat up long enough to set his glasses on the their table before swinging a leg over Draco’s lap. _In for a penny, in for a pound_ , he slowly lowered himself until wet denim met the smooth fabric of Draco’s thighs still crossed politely, and he was biting at the edge of a collar to muffle his moan.

Draco hummed pleasantly into his ear, and Harry was wrapping his arms around Draco’s shoulders and burying his face into his neck, embarrassed at the stuttering response of his hips. He wanted to feel (he want to come), but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes and face the reality of riding Draco’s thigh. It was like he didn’t know how to get his limbs to move, and he was so far beyond feeling like a nervous virgin it was ridiculous to be acting like one now. Draco’s hands worked their way down his back, and Harry relaxed as they settled onto his hips, not resisting the gentle pressure to move. He practically inhaled shirt fabric as he tried to keep an involuntary noise to himself, but he still wound up hearing the mewling echo as it was interwoven into the club’s music, and Draco kept the slow pace until Harry couldn’t bite back another whimper. He wanted to grind down, to buck, to ride his Owner’s thigh like he had successfully completed training and knew how sex worked. But something was too taut inside his chest, and it was so much easier to let Draco’s hands guide him faster and choke back the high, mewling noises. Harry had no idea how long he’d been panting and struggling to breathe through Draco’s shirt, but he was just starting to feel the burn in his thighs when the building heat at the base of his spine finally crested.

He was floating in that post-coital haze where his thoughts were slow and mostly filled with obscenities. It had been a long time since Matei had allowed him to come, and he almost felt unacquainted with the loose limbed feeling, even though it was pleasant, and warm, and made his chest feel full to the brim with a sated contentedness. He rolled his hips and sighed at the still warm spunk coating the inside of his jeans, his prick, and his thighs. Once it started to cool down and dry, any lingering comfortability would evaporate into unpleasant itchiness, but he still had time to enjoy this rare treat because Matei didn’t indulge in one-sided attention like this often. Something curled around his hip, and Harry was pulled back from the hormone fueled haziness when he realized Draco’s magic was all but purring against his skin. It was soft, warm, and giving him the distinct impression of a happy cat headbutting for attention. His stomach clenched uncomfortably, and the too taut something in his chest snapped. Because Draco was the one who got him off, not Matei. _Not Matei_ , Harry disentangled his arms and pushed himself away from where he had melted into Draco. He was confused by the tears welling up in his eyes, and guilt was forming a heavy weight in his stomach, and he felt dirty like something was coating his skin. Filthy, filthy, filthy. He needed a shower, and quite frankly, he needed Draco to stop murmuring in whatever language he was whispering into Harry’s hair because it was distracting. He pulled away and stared into the blurry eyes that were the wrong color, “Red.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A particular [tumblr post](http://jatamansi.tumblr.com/post/178305772357/milesss17-mee) of a screenshot of a tweet also figured heavily in writing that night at The Dragon's Den [a shy sub riding your thigh and hiding their face in your shoulder, mewling quietly as you guide their hips & make them move faster].
> 
> Romanian that appears in Chapter 5:  
> Poftă bună = Enjoy [your meal]. ([Source](https://en.bab.la/phrases/travel/eating-out/english-romanian)).  
> Partidul Communist Român = The Communist Party of Romania ([PCR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Communist_Party)).  
> Republica Socialistă România = The Socialist Republic of Romania ([RSR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_Romania)).  
> Mulțumesc foarte mult = Thank you very much. ([Source](https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/romanian.php)).  
> …  
> Dictionary / Google Translate  
> Bijuteria Micul Paris = The Jewel of Little Paris  
> Călăul = The Punisher  
> Nu / Da, Domnule. = No / Yes, Sir.  
> . . .  
> Russian:  
> мама = Mother / Mom.  
> магглов = Muggles ([Source](http://context.reverso.net/translation/english-russian/Muggles#%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2)).  
> Спасибо = Thank you.


	6. Vulnera Sanentur (Aug 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Added to Tags: Communication, Consent Issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a plotbunny, I had notes for Harry going to the Snagov monastery with Draco and meeting the Squibs there, but I tweaked things around and no longer have an excuse to share this headcanon: Squibs can be ‘created’ by the effects of magical core drainage and/or weakening from a wix trying to survive radiation. I specifically had an OMC who was the guide for visitors who was affected in utero by the fallout from Chernobyl. Why go through all this effort? *shrug* I can see Shield Charms and warding providing some degree of defense against Muggle weaponry, but I wanted to counteract this impression that magic can defend against everything and have something that Muggles can realistically be seen as a threat for.
> 
> I did some slight tweaking to Vulnera Sanentur and Sectumsempra, for those who may care about canon deviation.  
> \---  
> Romanian that appears in Chapter 6:  
> Supă = Soup ([Source](https://en.bab.la/phrases/travel/eating-out/english-romanian)).  
> [Useful Romanian phrases](https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/romanian.php)  
> Noapte bună = Goodnight

Harry wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself as he stood under the rain mat modeled after clouds in the shower (it was either the default showerhead or the last one used because he couldn’t make the decision to change to one of the other options right now). He’d barely been able to focus long enough to get the handheld cloud to turn on as it was, and that was more from not wanting to have to scrub himself clean than genuine concentration. He was too in his body, too aware of his skin, and he couldn’t control the sporadic eye leaking. Well, on a physical level, it was warm saltwater and indistinguishable from crying, but Harry couldn’t figure out what his emotions were doing so it didn’t feel like crying. Logically, he could remember Draco winning the bid to be his Owner and taking him to The Dragon’s Den. Harry could remember the performance, wanting to come, and saying green, but at some point in the race to the finish line, his body had forgotten he wasn’t with Matei. The dirty feeling had slowly washed away with the dried spunk, but he didn’t know what to do with the confusion and guilt churning in his stomach and mixing together. It felt too overwhelming to think about right now, and he just wanted to sleep.

The beginning notes of a song echoed off the walls, and Harry opened the glass door that had frosted for privacy. Something in his chest wriggled at the almost white marble opaqueness because it seemed like the highest privacy level, but he didn’t want to think about that while toweling off and sliding his sleep pants on. He could still feel the heat of Draco’s hands on his hips, and as much as a part of him knew they hadn’t been rough tonight, Harry was still expecting to see the purple beginnings of bruises where he could feel fingertips. He blinked at the baby blue of a different Falmouth Falcons t-shirt lying on the sink. It was next to one of Dudley’s gray oversized shirts, but he didn’t know which one to put on. He should probably put on his Owner’s shirt, but he didn’t want so much touching his skin, and it’s not like he was emotionally attached to either shirt anyways, so he shouldn’t be tearing up at this. The next chord of the song started to play, which was the timer for when Draco had said he’d check on Harry if he wasn’t out of the bathroom (he’d been saying something about what time they were set for when he’d cast the timer spells, but Harry’s internal clock had no idea if five minutes or an hour had passed).

The door cracked open, and Harry could feel the slinking concern before he could actually see Draco in the mirror. His magic seemed fluttery at the ends, approaching inquisitively and withdrawing nervously, which was at odds with the calm exterior. Harry slid his glasses on in order to avoid meeting the other man’s eyes. Something crawled up his spine, and he flinched away from a tendril of magic nudging his shoulder. He could see Draco’s hand frozen above the same spot in the mirror, and the guilt rose from his stomach to his esophagus, heavy and threatening to make the heat of bile a reality. If Harry could just explain that touch was too much right now, but he really wasn’t sure what might come out of his mouth if he opened it at the moment, so he didn’t say anything. Just watched long, thin fingers flex above his shoulder and retreat, and the awareness of magic and mood blinked out like a door shutting across Draco. It left Harry with blank eyes, hands clasped politely in front of himself, and a much easier to deal with neutrality. He couldn’t deal with his own emotions, let alone whatever Draco was going through. Fuck, he just wanted to sleep, and forget tonight for a little while, and let the shit hit the fan in the morning.

“Are you alright?”, Harry half turned to look at Draco, and without thinking about it, he took a step back closer to the sink. Draco’s jaw clenched, but his cool exterior didn’t break, “Is there anything that you need right now?”

“Sleep”, Harry didn’t know why he felt so exhausted. He’d made it through longer sexual activity during his training, and he hadn’t felt so drained even when he had to do manual labor, maintain a position as furniture, or stand for hours as ornamentation. Draco glanced to the sink where both t-shirts still lay, “You do understand we will have to talk about what happened tonight, right? I’m going to need to know what to avoid doing, saying, or whatever the trigger was.”

Harry nodded. Honestly, this foggy state was about as disorienting and unenjoyable as stepping away from his body, not to mention whatever the fuck his emotions and tear ducts were doing. He would love to figure out what to avoid, so he wouldn’t experience this again, but he really did feel like his thoughts were going to be useless without some rest first. Draco nodded in acknowledgement and pushed the door to the bedroom open wider. Harry followed but paused when he saw the bed with the decorative pillows neatly stacked on the floor at the foot and Elty laying on the closest pillow at the head of the bed. Oh, he hadn’t thought this through. He wasn’t sure he could stomach the top blanket touching him right now, let alone sharing a bed. _What if he tries to touch me?_ , Harry took a deep breath and prayed he didn’t look as panicked as he felt, but he probably failed from the way Draco looked from him to the bed and froze. He bent down on Harry’s side, fiddled with something on the posts, and pulled out a cot. Well, other beds in this style would have a cot just above the floor for human pets to sleep on, but the hotel was fancy enough it looked like a completely made up twin bed was attached to the main frame. Harry waited for Draco to gather his toiletries and pajamas and shut the bathroom door before he sighed in relief.

Thank God for kinky freaks. He set his glasses on the closest nightstand and repositioned the bedding into a mound between him and the bed in order to have some warmth against his back without suffocating directly underneath the blanket. It was a trick he’d learned when Matei wasn’t there -- Harry shoved the thought away because his eyes were burning again, and he didn’t want to cry anymore tonight. Draco would be done any minute now, and he didn’t want to deal with questions and concern. He curled up into the fetal position and forced himself to breathe. It was just another group outing that went a bit sideways, is all. He would sleep it off, and everything would be fine in the morning. Granted, it would be easier to fall asleep with a pillow -- He craned his neck behind him at the memory of Elty. Harry didn’t want to think about how he was technically Draco’s Swedish Short-Snout and the other man might also need something to calm him down after tonight as he slid the stuffed dragon off what should’ve been his pillow on the bed (so, really, it’s okay if he still used him on the cot, right?).

Harry did feel calmer and was half-asleep by the time the bathroom door opened and he could hear something padding the sound of Draco’s footsteps to the other side of the bed. He tensed, fully expecting an interrogation about what he was doing with Elty, but none came. A few rustling noises as Draco got into bed and settled down. A soft exhale. He could feel a wispy sadness pulled tight around Draco’s body like a tattered cloak, and Harry’s chest felt like he had a funny knot in it. He hadn’t done a good job at communicating that this wasn’t personal per se, but even after Elty’s calming effects had started to kick, he still wasn’t ready for the in-depth conversation they would eventually have to have. An apology would be too vague, or worse, a conversation starter, but he needed something short. Harry whispered, “Noapte bună, Draco”, into Elty’s wing, and he was relieved when Draco returned the sentiment, the sadness reducing from the mental impression of a steady rain to a light sprinkle.

~

Harry went from blissful unconsciousness to being awake with very little transition. He groaned because his muscles felt tight and cramped, and his head hurt from too much crying the night before. Why was he awake? What the fuck was that noise? He forced one eye open to glare in the direction of that damn song and the blue-white hourglass of the timer, which was floating above a plate with a blueberry muffin and his antibiotic potion sitting on it. The muffin was delicious, but he wasn’t in the mood for breakfast because he didn’t really want to interact with Draco yet. Some of the grogginess from sleep faded when he sat up to shove his glasses on his nose to get a proper look around the room (the muffin and timer didn’t exactly set themselves, so he was already fucked). The armchairs had been rearranged to face out the window, and a small table sat in between with Draco in his ever present business casual and the remains of his breakfast. He took a sip of his tea and addressed the window in a civilly detached voice, “If you want a lie in, you can go back to sleep.”

Harry couldn’t feel anything coming off of him, but the blankness wasn’t as welcome this morning because he was flying in the dark. Was Draco angry he’d used red last night? He had spoiled an otherwise alright show. Was he offended that Harry hadn’t been able to handle touch or communicate? After a grounding sleep, his hindsight could now see in cringing detail how flinching and stepping away had led to the shutdown. Refusing the offered t-shirt and panicking at sharing a bed no doubt didn’t help, but Draco had slipped behind the cool and collected façade from last night. Harry couldn’t see a clock from his position near the floor, so he cleared his throat and asked, “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.” _Jesus fucking Christ_. By the time he’d been able to calm down enough to explain that he wanted to leave with actual words, it was well after midnight when the taxi had pulled up to the Grand Hotel Continental, and they probably hadn’t fallen asleep until sometime after one in the morning. Harry pulled the sheet and blanket over his legs, fully intending on taking that suggestion for a lie in seriously. Draco continued to speak, “I have an appointment in a bit. Your attendance is optional, but not required.”

“At what, exactly?”, Harry didn’t try to hide his suspicion at attending another event Draco had scheduled. His silence spoke to picking up on that, but he seemed to be practicing his not jumping straight to anger tactics, “The Temple of Hephaestus at Snagov for Squibs provides hand forged items to wixen and Muggles. It picked up the guise of being a monastery for Saint Giles of blacksmiths and the physically disabled a few centuries ago, and now, according to the Muggles, the monastery’s been abandoned. My appointment will work out the details on a custom order that will be shipped to the Manor.”

It was uncomfortably awkward for Harry to see exactly how consequences from last night were playing out before his eyes. Draco had more than likely planned on taking Harry. It wasn’t every day you got to visit a sort of temple, sort of monastery, unless you happened to belong to that religious tradition. It wasn’t every day you went to a forge where magical and Muggle items were made. It wasn’t every day in the Wizarding world that people talked about Squibs and how they could bridge the wix-Muggle divide. And yet, Harry didn’t feel like getting in a small, confined space to travel to a semi-dangerous place where neither his input nor presence were needed. It sounded like the perfect way to trap him into having a conversation he still wasn’t prepared for. Draco exhaled softly like he was grasping at small talk straws, “As I said, your attendance is not required. I should be finished in time for lunch. Would you like me to bring anything in particular back?”

Harry thought the point of staying in a hotel containing two fancy restaurants was that they didn’t need to eat out, but pointing that out would probably sound lazy. He had no idea where this Snagov monastery was, or what this local area had in terms of food options, but that sounded bratty in his head and would definitely sound like back talk out loud. Draco had turned in his chair to look back at Harry, and he shrugged, unsure of what to say under scrutiny, “Isn’t there a bistro downstairs, or something?”

“The Balkan Bistro”, Draco paused, and it was annoying how casual and neutral his body language was. Harry didn’t doubt his abilities to lie about his mission to kill Dumbledore at times like this. He reiterated, still trying to be polite and civil, “Would you like me to bring your order back --?”

“I dunno”, Harry sighed. He wasn’t chomping at the bit to piss Draco off, but he was also not awake enough to be interested in anything other than sleeping. Matei hadn’t been able to whip and otherwise punish the snark out of him early in the morning simply because his brain wasn’t entirely awake enough to follow every rule laid out. However, he wasn’t asleep enough to be unresponsive and catatonic, which sometimes led to holes in the brain to mouth filter, “Have you considered I may not be hungry today?”

Draco blinked, a flicker of confusion passing across his face before he got himself under control, “You don’t seem keen on leaving the room. I was trying to work around exposure to crowds - or the public --”

“I don’t have an issue with crowds”, Harry snapped. A part of his brain was vaguely aware that he was inferring a more dangerous meaning that he had an issue with Draco, but he was tired of Draco assuming he didn’t like going out in public or being around crowds. The man in question tensed, and there was no doubt he’d gotten the unspoken message with the clipped tone, “Be that as it may, you still need to eat something with your antibiotic, and eating daily is --”

“What’re you going to do? Force feed me?”

The temperature of the room dipped, and Harry gasped at the ice cold breeze that emanated from Draco’s vicinity. This wasn’t the feeling or impression of his magical-energetic system or his mood, though it didn’t take a genius to figure that part out right now. Draco’s anger yesterday morning had felt hot, but this was a bit more than a slip in the façade. The accidental magic was reeled back in, and Harry couldn’t help but shiver at the crack delving deep into something beyond anger. Granted, it was still rather chilly in a literal sense, but a line had been crossed. Draco was ice, expressionless but poised to lash out (not frozen in disbelief or caught off guard, not tense and uneasy, but graceful with a calm fury). He stood slowly, and Harry swore he saw frost in the bottom corners of the window behind Draco, who spoke with a quiet coldness that was worse than loud rage, “We will be dining separately for lunch, but you will eat with your antibiotic dosage. If you don’t, any competent Healer knows the spells to cast so that you will properly follow your medication’s instructions whether you feel like doing so or not.”

It had taken a good half hour of being bundled under the sheets and blanket for the room to stop feeling like a freezer after Draco left. He had calmly walked out and quietly shut and locked the door. It managed to feel worse than stomping, door slamming anger or even disappointment. Fuck, Harry felt like he’d been pulled from a pond in which he’d fallen through the ice after underestimating how thick it was. Because jabbing at the open wound from last night with a thinly veiled conversation about lunch was a severe underestimation. Harry didn’t view it as Draco forcing anything on him because he very well could’ve just wanked and experienced the same emotional freak out, but they hadn’t actually talked about it. He hugged Elty closer to his chest and briefly wondered if he was allowed to drag the blankets off the main bed. He had started to think his guilt was doing something psychosomatic because the hotel room still felt chilly when he finally drifted back to sleep.

~

Harry squinted at the miniature grandfather clock on Draco’s nightstand when he heard the snick of the door handle and the first clicks of Draco’s shoes on the floor. Two o’clock. It was rather late for returning after lunch, but they hadn’t gone into specifics on how long the appointment or their separate meals would last. The footsteps stopped next to the table where the antibiotic bottle was sitting next to a quickly scrawled note describing what Harry had ordered for lunch (veg soup which came with m-something - rice? - thing, Supă #2 on menu). The room had still been chilly when he woke up alone, and he’d pulled on the Falmouth Falcons t-shirt from the sink before letting the witch with the food inside the room. Not that he was embarrassed to have perky nipples and gooseflesh in a normal shivering response to the room’s new temperature, but he didn’t want to have to explain how he’d provoked the whole situation. Harry had bundled himself in his bedding and then worked his blanket burrito under the main bed’s quilt with the hope that he might feel his fingers and toes by the time Draco returned, but that hadn’t happened yet.

“Are you coming down with a fever?”, Draco’s voice was muffled by the blankets pulled up around Harry’s neck (and partially over his head in the case of the lighter sheets). He sounded surprised that the room was so chilly, but Harry wasn’t going to lie to his face about sleeping better this way (the witch must have run into this often enough to not be concerned by the story), “The room’s been a bit slow on getting up to temperature after your, erm, after you left this morning.”

He could feel the weak little flares of heat spring to life and then peter out as Draco cast some sort of spell to check the state of the Thermoregulation Charms. He managed to remain calm while phoning the front desk and asking for a maintenance wix to check on their room’s Warming Charms, but Draco wasn’t hiding his irritation once the call was over, “You clearly were able to place an order for lunch, so what was so hard about getting the Thermoregulation Charms checked?”

“I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things”, Harry snuck a hand out of his cocoon of warmth to feel around for his glasses. Draco’s shoes were clicking in a brisk path around the room, and he was hoping that seeing Draco would settle his nerves a bit. He readjusted the blankets to stay curled around his shoulders and sat up slowly, but it turned out that getting a visual on Draco’s pent up stress didn’t help. Draco looked surprisingly unaffected by the cold, and it seemed like his arms being crossed over his chest was more defensive than an attempt at warmth. He huffed in frustration, “This isn’t a bloody cell where you have to grit and bear it - or suffer in silence. You can phone the front desk if you need to, unless you want to run the risk of getting frostbite. You can still feel and move all of your fingers and toes, can’t you?”

“Yes”, Harry made sure to flex all of his digits just to be sure he could still operate his extremities, but he was fairly sure the layers of blankets hid that double check from Draco. He adjusted his hold on Elty, who while helpful with relaxing and calming was unfortunately not an adequate source of heat, and addressed the foot of the bed, “I thought it was just taking a little while for the Warming Charms to catch up, and then when I woke up, I thought my mind was playing some sort of trick on me.”

“So, you frequently imagine living inside your own brisk autumn day. Joy”, Draco was grumbling more to himself than trying to tear into Harry, so his sarcasm lacked the sharp bite Harry remembered from school. He shifted until he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, which reduced the feeling that he was an invalid being restrained in bed and helped warm his feet up. Harry didn’t want to talk about the elephant in the room, but he would have to make some sort of concession, “Our sleeping quarters were kept a bit lower than the usual room temperature, so we wouldn’t be burning up when someone joined us in bed. It became a - a thing - to feel cold when Matei would leave, even if we weren’t in the sleeping quarters.”

“I informed you of my appointment in an attempt to head off a negative reaction to waking up while I was gone”, Draco’s voice had slipped into the civil tone from this morning. Harry may be prone to idiotic mistakes, but he wasn’t dumb enough to not figure that out while huddling under the blankets after lunch. He shifted his knees so that the blanket would shift between its shimmering white and pale gray tones in the different lighting. His stomach was twisting nervously, and there couldn’t be a more glaring moment to break down and apologize if Harry tried to orchestrate one. He swallowed and took a deep breath, “I shouldn’t’ve spoken this morning. I wasn’t awake enough to think before speaking, and I reckon I was still in a bit of a mood after last night, and I didn’t really want to talk about what happened, and I crossed a line that I shouldn’t have --”

“Harry”, Draco didn’t sound angry, which should be a good sign, but he did sound serious enough that he didn’t have to speak over Harry to get his attention, “I have no interest in being coddled. I was unprepared for talking around what happened at The Dragon’s Den first thing this morning, so I lost control for a moment. I’m sorry my magic disrupted the Warming Charms, and I should not have left you thinking it was some sort of punishment for what you said. I may not have reacted very well, but if forced is the description you want to use, you shouldn’t change to placate me.”

“I -- You didn’t”, Harry felt his insides shiver as he took in Draco’s stance. He had stopped pacing and unfolded his arms in what might’ve looked like a neutral caricature of last night, but his hands were clenched into fists at his sides and his body looked to be bracing for an impact. He hadn’t stumbled over the last part about force, and Harry realized he’d accepted it with a certain resignation sometime during the day and was simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something clawed at the inside of Harry’s chest, “You weren’t doing anything until I climbed in your lap. If you’d’ve tried to force anything, I would’ve said something or possibly stepped away from my body, but I wouldn’t have said - wouldn’t have…”

“The penis is a biological organ, not a moral or legal compass”, Draco’s voice had started to go a little flat like he was reciting, and Harry desperately wanted a Time-Turner so he could undo the careless comments that had started this whole mess, “I checked in with you before you crawled into my lap, but I didn’t check again afterwards. Biology responds to friction, hormones, and all sorts of physical sensations that can feel enjoyable, even if one doesn’t want to engage in that activity.”

“No”, Harry shook his head because he was intimately aware that Draco wasn’t lying, but this wasn’t like group excursions. He had perfected stepping away from his body, so it wouldn’t matter if he was given lube mixed with a lust potion because the client wanted him to physically respond or not. Biology could get off, but he didn’t stay in his body and enjoy it with those men. It was something reserved for Matei - well, until last night. He pulled the blankets closer around himself to keep the confusion from coming back, “I know I would’ve stepped away from my body because it’s happened before, and you weren’t like them.”

A little ball of warmth was slinking back and forth across the floor as a flare of hope paced around Draco. Harry felt something relax in his chest, and he knew the frantic need to convince Draco he wasn’t a rapist wasn’t as urgent. He still felt guilty about this morning, though, because a part of him had wanted to lash out and keep Draco from coming closer with the implication. Malfoy was by no means an angel, but Harry could tell by the way he was only now relaxing his bracing stance that Draco had picked apart everything about last night as his own devil’s advocate, to support Harry’s condemnation instead of fighting it. Not out of a masochistic desire to self-flagellate, but because they’d wound up in a squishy, gray area where they maybe hadn’t communicated enough (but if they knew each other better, if Harry hadn’t safed, neither of them would feel so confused and guilty about it after the fact).

~

“Oy!”, Harry knocked on the bathroom door, but the only sound he could hear through the thick wood was water running. If he needed to amplify his voice to be heard, he was shit out of luck while afluit. He glanced back to the silver plate covers waiting at the table in front of the window and tried to turn the door handle ( _Why did he lock the door?_ ), “Food’s here. Which is which?” The water turned off, and he rapped sharply on the door, “I can’t exactly use Sonorus here, Draco. Could you just open the door --?”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure where his voice fucked off to when the door was jerked open, but he suspected he was gazing at why Draco had locked the bathroom door. He was aware of the hotel’s fluffy white towel wrapped snug around hip bones, but it was the thick, white raised scar that disappeared below the towel onto the right hip and rose diagonally across Draco’s chest that had his attention. It splintered and cracked into offshoots along his stomach, wrapped tendrils around ribs, and concentrated like a starburst in the center of his chest. The smaller scars gradually thinned towards the ends and faded into his pale skin, especially around his shoulders and neck where someone must have prioritized dittany to make sure nothing crept into visibility when he wore a shirt. A tense irritation was radiating off Draco, even without his magic being a tangible mood ring at the moment, and Harry swallowed nervously, averting his eyes to the intricate swirled carvings on the door. Draco was short, to the point, and just this side of prickly, “The orders are the same. Just pick one.”

The door closed swiftly, and Harry was reasonably sure Draco didn’t know or care if he actually had nodded in acknowledgement or not. Well, that would certainly explain Draco’s particularities around not undressing in front of Harry and locking the bathroom door to ensure privacy. He scooped Elty off the bed and curled up in the armchair closest to the window, feeling a little jittery like he’d narrowly avoided being hit with a jinx or curse. Harry didn’t know what all had happened to Draco during the war, but he was present for a duel (in a bathroom, no less) that involved a homemade Cutting Curse that now that he was trying to remember it had been concentrated in Draco’s chest. Harry stared out the window at the fancy looking building with a shit ton of windows across the way. He hadn’t feel guilty for having used Sectumsempra once he found out that Draco hadn’t actually died from it, and honestly, he didn’t really feel guilty now. There was a war going on, and they were in the midst of a duel, and Harry had believed that Draco was going to cast an Unforgivable on him. The bathroom door clicked open, and Draco padded out in his slippers. Harry wasn’t sure if he owned anything other than full length pajama bottoms, although he had gone for a long-sleeved shirt tonight.

“I value privacy in the bathroom, so please try to limit interruptions to more pressing matters”, Draco had sat down in the other armchair and removed the plate covers with a detached air. He was no longer a tight coil of agitation, and if Harry hadn’t known they were talking about something serious, he might have guessed the other man was commenting on their fancy cheese toasties and tomato soup, “I am not going to retroactively punish you for any of our fights or disagreements. I’m quite aware you weren’t bothered by the spell’s effects before now, so I would appreciate if you didn’t get - weird - about the scars now that you’ve seen them.”

“I’m not happy about them”, Harry found it was much easier to look at the fountain in front of the building with the windows, “I just thought Snape got to you with the countercurse in time.”

“Vulnera Sanentur is more of a general emergency wound repair spell”, Draco continued to speak calmly, and his spoon clinked against the side of the bowl, “It can stitch flesh and organs together to stem bleeding, but it’s not a counter for a Dark Cutting Curse. Sectumsempra translates to ‘always cutting’, and it will continue to cut by reopening wounds.”

“The duel was ages ago”, Harry was now starting to feel pangs of guilt creep along his ribs. It was one thing to cast a spell and be done with it, but it’s an entirely different story to have the spell’s effects linger for years like that. Draco sipped from his water glass, “Despite Professor Snape creating the spell and using it in the First War, he and Madam Pomfrey were flying by the seat of their pants when it came to managing and stopping the curse. It’s unauthorized and technically doesn’t exist according to the Ministry, so almost everything about treatment was experimental.”

“But, it eventually stopped reopening”, Harry shivered under the cool gaze of steel gray eyes. It was surreal to talk about the war like this because those eyes were older than their owner and had seen more than enough death and dying people. Draco looked out the window as well, “Stopping the internal bleeding from the nicks to veins and arteries was the top priority, and sutures had to be recast because they were being cut apart over time. Ached like a bitch and the Dark magic caused all kinds of problems with nearby organs through seventh year, but it all stopped when the caster died in the Final Battle.”

The caster. Harry didn’t know what to say to that, and he turned in the chair to stare at Draco, who was paying attention to his toastie. He didn’t look like he was gloating or enjoying the conversation, but he also didn’t seem sad or upset about it. Just talking about it for the umpteenth time and tired. Draco glanced up and caught Harry’s blatant stare. He shrugged slightly, “Your death was connected to destroying the Dark Lord’s horcruxes, which was revealed during the so called Treason Trials. Quite frankly, I have no opinions about your dying one way or the other because I wasn’t involved in it. You clearly were not aware of the effects of certain Dark spells and the caster being alive, and I wasn’t suffering under any delusions that your sacrifice had anything to do with breaking the connection.”

Well, Harry couldn’t argue with that. He’d gotten to a point where he so focused on destroying the horcruxes and making sure Voldemort could be killed that he probably wouldn’t have cared about a lingering caster connection (unless the information could be used to kill Voldemort somehow). His conscience prickled uncomfortably, but if he were being honest with himself, Harry would never have considered taking an active role in stopping the Sectumsempra after effects if he had known about it during the war. Draco’s voice fell to just above a whisper, “You probably only saw the immediate aftermath of Vulnera Sanentur, and the effects of scarring are cumulative, especially when hexes and curses are involved. I wound up getting a lot of practice with casting sutures on myself and brewing Blood Replenishing Potion during the war because Sectumsempra wants to make a complete skin to skin journey to be a finished spell, but there wasn’t much I could do to prevent scar tissue buildup. It wasn’t until this past year that I could see Madam Pomfrey again, and she only had enough dittany for my face and neck.”

They lapsed into silence, but Harry didn’t find it as awkward or uncomfortable as he thought a discussion of the war would elicit. He figured it was the passage of time since the first anniversary of the Final Battle had already passed a few months ago. Maybe in the days following the end of the war when the Death Eaters were being rounded up and the memory of the Sectumsempra pain was fresh, they would’ve come to blows over this, but they were now removed from the immediate aftermath and Draco had been forced to carry on with fulfilling his probation and seeing a Mind Healer. Harry reckoned that witch or wizard was a saint who deserved at the very least a thank you card for their efforts, but he had just enough survival instincts to know even an offhand joke of that nature wouldn’t go over well today. When they had finished dinner, Draco had curled up until he was fairly wedged into a corner of the chair with his arms around his knees. Harry couldn’t tell if it was comfortable or not for someone so tall, but his stomach did a decidedly uncomfortable wiggle at the new direction of the conversation. Draco was quiet and had warmed from his detached fact sharing of the war to a gentle inquisitive tone, “Do you often go nonverbal, or was last night a fluke?”

Oh, fuck. Harry couldn’t avoid thinking about The Dragon’s Den and the freak out any longer. He pulled Elty closer to his chest for a whiff of the familiar lavender, chamomile, and other assorted herbs. He shrugged, mumbling, “Dunno. It gets hard to talk when I step away from my body, but I know that’s not what happened.”

“We might need to come up with a nonverbal cue, but that’s putting the carriage before the Abraxan”, Draco waved a hand dismissively, “First, we need to make sure we’re on the same page about what was uncomfortable and/or the last straw.”

“Right, erm”, Harry swallowed and stared at the tablecloth. Even though the cheeses mixed together were a bit odd (probably fancy varieties instead of recognizable cheeses like cheddar), he would kill for another toastie right now. He knew this talk was inevitable, but hadn’t they done enough talking and scar baring for the day? He tried to think back to The Dragon’s Den, “It wasn’t that we were in public, or the crowds, er -- It wasn’t sorta being seen and heard either.”

“Was it the acts in the show itself?”, Harry shook his head, but he wasn’t sure he could offer a verbal affirmation without getting distracted by questions for Draco (How could you sit through that and be unaffected? Please tell me that’s not a hard limit). He rather clearly hadn’t had any issues with the rope suspension, and he was a little afraid he might be blushing at the memory of it. Draco gently pressed forward, “Even the werecat triad? The act you safed in?”

“I don’t really remember it”, Harry knew it wasn’t helpful, but he wasn’t lying. He motioned between them, “I was a bit more focused on our booth.”

“Hm-mm”, Draco waited patiently for Harry to continue. _Oh fuck_ , his brain stuttered over itself. He’d gotten rid of most of the external factors, which didn’t leave Draco with many other options than what _he_ did. No, they’d done the first painful Talk and were clear that force or coercion weren’t involved. Harry just had to figure out a way to say that he’d forgotten he was with Draco for a split second there without actually saying that to his face. Because that would be a ruthless punch to the gut (and ego) for a new Owner, and it would probably upset him. Harry startled at movement in his peripheral, but it was only Draco pushing a notebook with lined paper and a pen towards him on the table before quietly leaving. On the first page in Draco’s neat penmanship:

> We’ll have to deal with going nonverbal and figuring out how to still communicate eventually, but for now, write. I won’t make you read it out loud and I will not punish you for whatever you write, but I will have to read it myself. I will be down the hall to the right in the lounge with the holo-pitch for 2 hours. You’re allowed to stay here when you’re done, but I’m not going to forbid you from leaving the room (the lounge is more than big enough for you to watch a different match).

…

The door creaked open, and the lights brightened as Draco walked to the table where the notebook still lay. Harry had spent a fair bit of time staring at the empty lines, wondering where Draco had found Muggle notebooks and pens, until he froze at the thought of not having anything written by the time Draco came back. He was more punishment averse than reward motivated as one of the trainers had told him after a University scene, and it was the vague idea of a whipping or another bout of broken Warming Charms that prompted him to write rather than a genuine desire to prod at wounds he was only just starting to realize were there.

> I didn’t really enjoy the group outings to the clubs because I don’t like being shared or lent out, even if the clients did make arrangements with Matei. It was easier when they didn’t care if I got off because they would just finish and leave. But some couldn’t do that, so I would step away.
> 
> I was Matei’s. I wanted to please him, and if watching me get fucked by someone else before reclaiming me was what did it for him, I could get through that. Because he wasn’t like them, so I didn’t step away from my body, and it was okay because I belonged to him. Matei wanted me to enjoy cumming (or not getting to). I didn’t enjoy playing with other men.
> 
> Last night, I knew who you were (my Owner) and I didn’t step away, but something got all mixed up because I enjoyed what happened so I had to be with Matei, but I was with Not-Matei so I shouldn’t have gotten off like that. I was too in my body, and everything touching me was too much (but Elty did help).

The swish of pages turning in the notebook as Draco scanned for more writing. Harry had felt like he was peeling back skin to something vulnerable and possibly infected inside as it was, so he hadn’t been able to go into more detail. Afterwards he had been torn about what to do. On the one hand, Harry thought he’d feel better (a little cleaner) if he changed out of the clothes he’d slept in and been wearing all day and had a proper shower with shampoo. On the other hand, he thought he ought to do something to show Draco that he wasn’t afraid of him. The visit with the maintenance wizard had resulted in recast Warming Charms (good) and the awkward realization that Draco was keeping out of arm’s reach because he expected Harry to flinch at any skin contact (not so good). Harry had showered, put the clothes in his Laundering bag, slipped into the oversized gray t-shirt from Dudley, and promptly gotten distracted by untangling the bedding for the cot from those for the bed. He had remade both mattresses but bypassed the stack of decorative pillows because Draco would only remove them all before getting ready for bed anyways. He hadn’t known what else he could do to make his Owner’s nightly routine easier, so he’d lain across the cot with Elty to wait.

Harry could definitely say he hadn’t expected Draco to pull his bedding over to his side of the bed, stack the decorative pillows down the middle, and order him up from the cot with its bedding. He felt a bit irritated because he’d put effort into remaking the beds, thank you very much, but mostly, he was caught off guard because he’d been expecting a ton of questions about what he’d written. Draco slid the cot back under the bed, fiddled with something on the posts to lock it in place, and walked around to his side while Harry got situated, “I’m not sure if we can do anything but give you some time to adjust to the change in perceived Ownership, to be honest. Your mind sounds aware, but your body not so much. Does this make sense?”

“I think so”, Harry set his glasses on his nightstand and burrowed into the blankets with Elty, “Erm, what’s the pillow wall for then?”

“You’re not a disobedient dog being kicked out of bed”, Draco slid the dimmer switch next to his nightstand down to extinguish the lights, “And I am capable of appropriate bed sharing like any gentlewizard should be.”

Oh. Harry wasn’t sure what an appropriate response to that should be. Thank you for the consideration, but I was expecting you to be upset and not let me in the bed. This hotel isn’t lying about being grand, and the “cot” is all but another bed, so it’s actually more than fine to sleep in. My skin isn’t over sensitive anymore (you can touch me). We don’t need to barricade ourselves like a pair of heterosexual men afraid of looking gay. I don’t know how to apologize and undo making you touch averse (please play with my hair). I appreciate your ability to keep your hands to yourself at night, but not all touch is sexual, Oh Great Gentlewizard. Harry blushed and rolled away from the pillow wall. He’d forgotten how whiny he could get when he went through a lull in how often he was touched because Matei hadn’t had the self-restraint to enforce it more than a handful of times, but now wasn’t the time to be so needy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My grandfather was diagnosed with two types of cancer diagnosis in April of this year [2018], and it may not make sense to some people, but I was drawn to reading fics with certain themes or elements when he was first diagnosed, and part of coping throughout the summer and fall included writing. I was in not necessarily nice, proper, or polite tags on ao3. Rape / Non-con, dubious consent, consensual non-con, Master/slave, sexual slavery and Ownership, and elements where there was a loss of control. Because there’s nothing like a loved one facing a terminal illness and mortality to make you feel like you have no control over anything.
> 
> I came across "Playing with Fire" back in April that I liked some ideas from, but obviously, I had some ideas of where I would try to take things in a different direction. I’m not even sure I can adequately explain why I wanted (needed?) to make it darker. Some people talk about how writers like to play God, and they tend to go for a motivation by hubris. This wasn’t about pride that I could fuck Harry up more or write some part of the fic “better”. Writing the dissociation, having Harry struggle with stepping away from his body, digging into the anger at the trainer mixed in with the guilt for missing him (or at least expecting his reactions), and interspersing the memories, triggers, and flashbacks comes down to control. Figuring out if I wanted to flashback to a rape scene, only hint at it, and how it might affect Harry now is about controlling the loss of control. I, as the writer, can fuck around with this character’s body and head, and I can choose to leave us in angst or turn the arc a little upwards, and I can get us to a less fucked up place by the end. (Hopefully.)
> 
> My grandfather died at the end of September, and I uploaded the first chapter to ao3 about a week later [6 Oct]. This is the last of what I had written before he passed, but I’m not abandoning this fic because it’s cathartic, a bit self-indulgent in places, and it’s the closest I’ve been to something that’s not original fiction in a while. Because even as I’ve got Dark shit in the past (that’s not directly or explicitly in the current chapters), I’ve got non-sexual submission / kink, Mind Healing, kintsugi as therapy, and less fucked up shit in the future chapters. (Assuming someone sticks it out until then.)
> 
> I must admit that even I wasn't aware of just how much talking I'd have planned for Harry and Draco in the first few days of Ownership, but the plan is to try to iron out some of the bumps from their history before they're back at the Manor. Upcoming, in no particular order: a dragon species I created as a queer mascot of sorts, UNESCO portkeys, University of St. George in the Seaweed in Venice, Cornea Correction Concoction (eyedrops that are analogous to contact lenses), Hermione diving into werewolf activism, so much fan theory about Wolfsbane Potion brewing it's probably not funny, and getting into the aftermath of Azkaban and dementor exposure for Draco.


End file.
